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Joh_8:10-11. Οἱ κατήγ .] who have accused thee to me, as if I were to be judge.
οὐδείς ] is emphatic: Has no one condemned thee? Has no one declared that thou art to be stoned? Were it not so, they would not have left the woman to go free, and all of them gone away. The κατέκρινεν here designates the sententia damnatoria, not as a judicial sentence (for the γραμματεῖς and Pharisees had come merely as asking a question concerning a matter of law or right), but simply as the judgment of an individual.
οὐδὲ ἐγώ σε κατακρ .: I also do not condemn thee. This is not the declaration of the forgiveness of sin, as in Mat_9:2, Luk_7:48, and cannot therefore justly be urged against the historical genuineness of the narrative (see, in particular, Hengstenberg); nor is it a mere declinature of judicial competency, which would be out of keeping with the preceding question, and with the admonition that follows: on the contrary, it is a refusal to condemn, spoken in the consciousness of His Messianic calling, according to which He had not come to condemn, but to seek and save the lost (Joh_3:17, Joh_12:46; Mat_18:11); not to cast out sinners; “not to quench the smoking flax,” etc. He accordingly does in this case what by His office He is called to do, namely, to awaken and give room for repentance[9] in the sinner, instead of condemning; for He dismisses her with the admonition μηκέτι ἁμάρτανε . Augustine well says: “Ergo et Dominus damnavit, sed peccatum, non hominem.” How striking the force of the negative declaration and the positive admonition!
[9] In connection with the marriage law, it is clear from this passage that, in the case of adultery, repentance on the part of the guilty party makes the continuance of the marriage allowable.