Finger of God: What did Jesus write on the ground?

There can be few New Testament passages more familiar to most Christians than the account of Jesus’ famous confrontation with the scribes and Pharisees where they brought to him a woman taken in adultery.

There are many fascinating lessons to be gleaned from this story which I am sorry to say most commentators seem to have missed, as a result of which there are even those who reject the entire account out of hand because it is absent from some early manuscripts.

It is my contention, however, that a proper understanding of this narrative not only provides ample evidence for its inclusion as a genuine recollection of the apostle John, but also answers a conundrum which has puzzled commentators, scholars and laymen alike for countless generations - Just what did Jesus write on the ground?

To begin with, here is the celebrated account taken from the English Standard Version (which translation I have chosen for a specific reason that I shall explain in due course):

…but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?"

This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.

And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground.

But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.

Jesus stood up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more."

As I say, it is a very familiar passage of scripture but unfortunately, as the old saying goes, ‘Familiarity breeds contempt’, and it may be for that very reason that a lot has been missed here that is vital to a proper understanding of exactly what occurred. In order to redress this deficiency we have to look carefully at not only the content but the context of this passage, because there is an old rabbinical principle that a text without a context is a pretext.

So, as well as examining the content of the given text we shall also be considering its context to see what we learn that may differ from the way it is traditionally interpreted.

The reason I chose the English Standard Version was because verse one begins with ‘but’ with its ‘b’ in the lower case and not the capital ‘B’ we would expect to begin a sentence. I further emphasised this by adding something writers call an ellipsis, represented by the three dots (…) preceding the conjunction, thereby implying the syntactical continuation of an absent clause.

Let me put that simply: I stuck three dots in front of the word ‘but’ to emphasise the fact that it is not the beginning of a sentence but the continuation of one which the chapter and verse division has cut in two. Chapterization and versification were reference tools added to the Bible centuries after the original text was written. They are a convenience not a law, and can sometimes interfere with context, as has happened here where the sense of the beginning of Chapter 8 flows directly from the end of Chapter 7.

In order to show this, we have to go back a few verses and read John 7:37-51,

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'"

Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

When they heard these words, some of the people said, "This really is the Prophet." Others said, "This is the Christ." But some said, "Is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?"

So there was a division among the people over him. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him. The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, "Why did you not bring him?"

The officers answered, "No one ever spoke like this man!"

The Pharisees answered them, "Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed."

Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, "Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?"

They replied, "Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee."

They went each to his own house, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

This was no ordinary day, but the culmination of every Holy Day in the Hebrew Calendar which John calls - ‘the last day of the feast, the great day’.

That is to say, it was the eighth day, following the seven-day autumn festival known as the Feast of Tabernacles or Succoth. It was a Sabbath, and although abutting directly onto Succoth was a distinct feast in its own right, which included a ceremony involving the pouring of water from a huge vessel down the steps of the Temple. Here, Jesus scandalized many by claiming that the Holy Spirit whom this mighty outflow represented would be given by God to those who came to him.

It was a direct challenge to the Temple authorities and an unequivocal claim to Messiahship that many of the Jews present recognised. That’s why it says,

‘there was a division among the people over him. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.’

Jesus was stirring it, and the religious authorities knew it all too well and didn’t like it, but fear of the multitudes stayed their hand from direct confrontation. So, they tried to have him surreptitiously arrested, which also failed when even the guards sent to apprehend him were taken aback by Jesus’ claims. And even the Pharisees were split when Nicodemus openly challenged his colleagues:

"Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?"

When the dust from all this controversy had settled, Jesus retired for the night to the Mount of Olives, returning to the Temple the following day, which is where Chapter 8, verse 2 begins:

Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.

So, this was no mere Bible study, but a confrontational act on Jesus’ part, directly challenging the Temple authorities; to which challenge they spectacularly responded:

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?"

This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.

Remember that only the day before, the religious authorities had failed to trap Jesus and had in fact sustained a considerable loss of face, so they were extremely keen to trip him up and vindicate themselves in the eyes of the people. They were trying to box Jesus into a corner and he knew it. If he said to stone her, they could have reported him to the Roman authorities as a troublemaker, and he would have dismayed many of his followers who regarded him as a exemplar of God’s mercy. If he judged her leniently, then they could accuse him of disregarding the law of Moses and reneging on his Messianic authority, so his initial reaction probably struck then as an attempt at evasion, because we read that...

Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.

At first, this did not deter the crowd who being incensed with indignation had not yet seen the trap into which Jesus was leading them:

And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground.

But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.

Jesus stood up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more."

What on earth could it have been that Jesus wrote on the ground that had such a dramatic effect on the woman’s accusers? The answer lies in the very Law they sought to use to accuse both the woman and Jesus.

Over the years there has been endless speculation as to what Jesus wrote on the ground that so disturbed the woman’s accusers that day. I should like to offer my own take on it for consideration, which is this:

I believe that Jesus simply turned the very Law that they were trying to wield against him (even at the cost of a woman’s life) right around on her accusers.

As a rabbi, Jesus wouldn’t have had to write a full scripture in the dust; merely a few words known as a kesher which was a form of rabbinical shorthand whereby a representative sample verse or sentence could be used to evoke a whole passage of scripture, which I suspect in this instance began by citing from Deuteronomy 17:6-13, which is reproduced in full below:

On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness.

The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

"If any case arises requiring decision between one kind of homicide and another, one kind of legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another, any case within your towns that is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place that Yahweh your God will choose. And you shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall consult them, and they shall declare to you the decision.

Then you shall do according to what they declare to you from that place that Yahweh will choose. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they direct you. According to the instructions that they give you, and according to the decision which they pronounce to you, you shall do. You shall not turn aside from the verdict that they declare to you, either to the right hand or to the left.

The man who acts presumptuously by not obeying the priest who stands to minister there before Yahweh your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall purge the evil from Israel. And all the people shall hear and fear and not act presumptuously again.

By rabbinical convention, just a few words of the foregoing scripture would have been sufficient for any rabbi to convey the weight of the whole passage, which was that once asked to adjudicate on the matter, a Rabbi’s ruling was final.

So far, so good. This was understood within the Jewish religious community and would not have struck anyone in the crowd as particularly controversial.

Essentially, it says: ‘If you want me to make a judgement, then I shall make one that is binding on all parties’.

By now, things were looking good to the crowd. As a Rabbi, Jesus had been asked to rule on the Law and had consented to do so. Essentially, he was trapped whichever way his judgement fell. But then he sprung a trap of his own, this time from Deuteronomy 19:15-21.

"A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offence that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.

If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before Yahweh, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days.

The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you. Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”

Thus did Jesus spring the trap on the woman’s accusers. Which two or more among them had actually witnessed the adultery being committed? Why was the man involved (her co-accused) not also present - as required by the Law?

Suddenly, the trap they had set for Jesus had sprung back upon the woman‘s accusers, because a false or uncorroborated allegation could carry the same penalty that would have been visited upon her.

There was a clear principle of Jewish Law at stake, called ‘clean hands’. In other words, you couldn’t bring an allegation against another regarding an offence of which you were yourself guilty. And these guys would have been well aware of Jesus’ teaching that it was adultery to even look on a woman with lust in their hearts.

And perhaps most cleverly of all, there was also the sin of perjury because, as soon as Jesus has made her stoning conditional on the first one casting a stone being sinless, they were caught. For anyone other than Jesus himself to cast a stone would have involved making that impossible claim. And, as judge in the case, it was not Jesus' place to do so.

Moreover, they were in the precincts of the Temple which was paved in solid stone, so when Jesus wrote in the dust, he was also writing on the stones - reminding them of the finger of God on the Tablets of the Law - an imagery that would not have been missed by the older, more learned and more experienced men who dropped their stones first. I suspect that the injunction of verses 16 and 17 would have weighed particularly heavily on them:

If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before Yahweh, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days.

And I also suspect that the enthusiasm of the woman’s accusers for catching Jesus out was severely dampened by the prospect of being judged guilty of perjury themselves - since the penalty for perjury mirrored that for the offence perjurously alleged, which in this case was capital. Suddenly, the finger of judgement was pointed back at them and their scheme had somehow lost its lustre.

As for Jesus, he had been asked to act in a judicial capacity which required that he judge whether a competent charge was upheld by the evidence of two or more eyewitnesses. With the prosecution in disarray he was quite within his rights to dismiss the case outright and let mercy triumph over justice. However, he did not perfunctorily dismiss the case against woman, but told her instead to ‘go and sin no more’, because the Son of Man did not come to save the innocent, but to give his own life as a ransom or atonement for the guilty.