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The Woman Taken in Adultery.
The arraignment of the guilty woman:
v. l. Jesus went into the Mount of Olives.
v. 2. And early in the morning He came again into the Temple, and all the people came unto Him; and He sat down and taught them.
v. 3. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto Him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
v. 4. they say unto Him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
v. 5. Now Moses in the Law commanded us that such should be stoned; but what sayest Thou?
v. 6. This they said, tempting Him, that they might have to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down, and with His finger wrote on the ground, as though He heard them not.
The members of the Sanhedrin, after the excited discussion which broke up their meeting, went each one to his house. But Jesus, having no home or definite place of sojourn in Jerusalem, went to the Mount of Olives, very likely to the town of Bethany, where His friends Martha, Mary, and Lazarus lived, in whose house He was always a welcome guest. But very early the next morning, as soon as the Temple-gates were opened for the morning sacrifices, He was back again, to continue His work of teaching the people. The Lord was indefatigable in His labors for the salvation of mankind, a shining example to all His servants. Jesus had no trouble in getting an audience; all the people that came to the Temple went to Him, and He addressed the assembly, teaching them words of eternal life. As a teacher in the Temple-school, as a teacher in the house of God, He sat before the people and instructed them. But the scribes and Pharisees, whose vindictive hatred would hardly give them any rest, were planning some way of taking the Lord unawares and ruining His standing with the common people. They brought an adulteress and placed her before Him, indicating that they were arraigning her before Him as judge. This was an altogether irregular proceeding, for they had their church courts, as well as their civil judges; but they were seeking occasion against Him. The woman was placed in the midst, to expose her shame before all, whereupon they stated their accusation, incidentally addressing Jesus, with mock courtesy, as "teacher. " There could be no doubt as to the guilt of the woman; it was a plain case of a flagrant transgression. But to the scribes and Pharisees the fate of the woman evidently was a secondary consideration, especially since the old church-laws were no longer carried out in all their stringency. They state the ordinance of Moses in a case of this kind, See Lev_20:10; Deu_22:22-23; Lev_21:9; Eze_16:38-40, but in a way implying a contrast between the Old Testament teacher and Jesus, for their question is: What now sayest Thou? It was a malicious temptation, and in no way an innocent questioning; their object was to find some accusation against Him. "Where shall He now go, the poor man Christ, when every avenue of escape is shut off? If He should keep silence, that would not agree. very well. If He says Yes, it is against His preaching; if He says No, it is against Moses. " But His enemies were disappointed, for Jesus, having stooped down, wrote on the ground with His finger, not for shame of the deed itself and the brazen hardness of the persecutors, as has been stated, but in order to convey to them, in a most emphatic way, that He wanted nothing to do with this matter, that it in no way concerned Him, but was a matter for their courts. The punishment of adultery was the business of the government: The idea of inveigling Him into an apparent opposition to the Law of Moses did not appeal to Him. It was a deliberate, an accusing silence. Note: If only all people to whose attention the shame and disgrace of a neighbor's sin is brought would assume at once this reproachful silence! It would. effectually stop malignant gossiping.