What Did Jesus Write?
The Holy Bible has many areas where things are often merely implied, sometimes left unsaid, and at other times, a test to our powers of reasoning. One such area that has intrigued Bible readers over the centuries is the question, “What did Jesus write on the Temple ground in Jerusalem?”
The scene is early morning in the Temple. Jesus has just come down from the Mount of Olives, and He is teaching the people gathered in the Temple precincts. The scribes and Pharisees drag in a woman, caught in the very act of adultery, and shove her in front of Jesus saying and asking the following.
4Teacher, they said, This woman has been caught in the very act of adultery.
5Now Moses in the Law commanded us that such [women--offenders] shall be stoned to death. But what do You say [to do with her--what is Your sentence]?
Their words underlined the fact that the Mosaic law was very clear to all of them. The punishment for adultery was death by stoning. Normally, they would have wasted no time giving vent to their sadistic nature. However, these guys had it in for Jesus, and they saw what they perceived to be a golden opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.
The scribes and Pharisees had caught the woman red-handed and knew the law thoroughly, but they were putting Jesus in a dreadful dilemma.
If Jesus endorsed the Mosaic law, His teaching of love, mercy and compassion would not only be dented, but He would seriously be challenging the prevalent Roman law, which forbade any Jew to pass or carry out a death sentence on anyone.
On the other hand, if Jesus said that the woman should be pardoned, He would not only be breaking the Mosaic law, but He would also essentially be condoning the act of adultery.
Caught in what appeared to be a no win situation, Jesus bent over and wrote on the ground with His finger.
6This they said to try (test) Him, hoping they might find a charge on which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger.
The Bible does not tell us what Jesus wrote on the ground with His finger, so it gives rise to different possibilities and interpretations.
Was Jesus simply doodling and playing for time while He pondered on the dilemma before Him? Again, since Jesus always prayed to God the Father for guidance, was He buying time until He received His Divine answer?
It is suggested that Jesus was indeed playing for time, deliberately closing His ears to the scribes and Pharisees to force them to keep on repeating their charges so they would expose their sadistic nature to themselves.
Another interesting suggestion is that Jesus was filled with such a deep sense of embarrassment and confusion, at the naked cruelty of the very teachers of the Law, that He stooped down to write with his finger on the ground to avoid meeting the lustful eyes of the scribes and Pharisees as well as the woman’s shame of guilt.
However, I personally believe the most plausible explanation would be that Jesus was confronting the self-righteous scribes and Pharisees with a record of their own sins. In other words, Jesus bent down to write on the ground the sins of the very men who were accusing the woman.
However, the scribes and Pharisees, in their desire to destroy Jesus, did not read the writing on the ground, and Jesus had to straighten up and remind them. After doing so, He then bent down again to write on the ground the next batch of their sins.
7However, when they persisted with their question, He raised Himself up and said, Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.
8Then He bent down and went on writing on the ground with His finger.
So, exactly what is this telling us? God, in His Infinite Wisdom, has designed a man’s hand such that every time he points accusingly at his brother, he will have three of his own fingers pointing back at him. Therefore, although we do not actually know what Jesus wrote on the dusty Temple ground in Jerusalem that day, we can be sure that whatever it was, it certainly told the scribes and Pharisees that they were hypocrites.
God Bless!
“Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified Bible”
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