This may be one of the
most enigmatic accounts in scripture,
that of:
Why did Yeshua/Jesus write on the ground?
and followed quickly by the obvious question:
What did He write in the dust?
There have been many suggestions from many people concerning this scenario.
Was it a list of sins etc.?
This suggestion would account for the reaction of her accusers, who, uncomfortable with their criminal past on display for the crowd to see; one by one they slunk away.
IF that is what Yeshua/Jesus wrote, then His point was obvious: Inferring to them that they were not without sin, and didn’t appreciate their sins on display any more than the woman did. It was true, she may have deserved death according to the Law of Moses, but they probably did too.
Some say that it was not uncommon to write in the dirt being a way to draw directions to a covert meeting for believers, who sometimes made the fish sign which could easily be erased with a quick slide of the foot.
Here it may be helpful if we think with a Torah based Hebrew mindset, taking into account the situation, the accusation, also, those who were accusing and their knowledge of Torah laws and instructions. The law of Moses which Pharisees and Sadducees followed said, the guilty one should be stoned to death.
This was for both the individuals in question, so was He upholding womens’ rights? Yeshua/Jesus seemed to disrupt the laws of His time in every single encounter with women recorded in the four Gospels, turning upside down that which was accepted as wisdom in His day.
His perspective toward women ran opposite to the Middle Eastern cultural norms. Women were often treated as property. Jewish rabbis began every temple meeting with the words, “Blessed art thou, O Lord, for thou has not made me a woman.”
A wife could never divorce her husband. However, a husband could divorce his wife for any reason, and he had no obligation to financially care for her. The husband simply handed her a bill of divorce and she was sent away.
Women were often viewed as inferior to men, excluded from public religious life and rarely taught the Torah, even in private.
Yeshua/Jesus taught both men and women and healed and performed miracles equally for both. Regardless of their lifestyle, including thieves, prostitutes, lepers, women of low social class (e.g. samaritan woman at well). He paid no attention to social standing or religious credentials; interacting in a very welcoming way with both men and women because He loved people. He knew that women had no religious or legal authority as spokespersons, yet Yeshua/Jesus gave them the role of being the very first to inform others of His resurrection.
John tells us something people often miss, that Yeshua /Jesus wrote twice, clearly a gesture that’s meant to call our attention to in emphasizing this point, and yet, at the same time it seems strange.
There is more to this scene than at first meets the eye and we must recall that this was not the first time God wrote with His finger.
When YeHoVeH gave the Law up on the mountain with Moses, in Exodus 31:18.
He wrote the Ten Commandments/10 sayings Himself.
YeHoVeH did not write in sand or dirt which can be wiped away but on tablets of stone. These words were permanent, unchangeable, binding, a covenant; He was marrying Israel to Himself.
And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.
Exodus 31:18
Click link below for more:
Truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Matthew 5:18
The second time in Daniel that He wrote with his finger, it was a condemnation of those arrogant peoples for not following his laws. , “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.”
click link below for more of above:
In John Chapter 8, this is the third time Gods finger writes – as Messiah, the God-man Yeshua/Jesus; and it appears He was also writing a condemnation or was He writing a pardon for sins?
An interesting point is that Yeshua/Jesus never stands up.
He straightens up but He never stands up.
Is it because He is sitting to judge this woman;
He keeps sitting and writing in the dirt.
Why?
Messiah sat, because Judges sit.
Bema Seat.
Matt.27:19
Even Pontius Pilate was seated on the Bema/Judgment Seat when he condemned Messiah to death.
Yeshua/Jesus will sit at the right hand of God to judge the living and the dead.
They said: such a woman is to be stoned to death; which implied that they had enough evidence. However, it was not clear if they had already put her on trial and/or if they had already questioned the witnesses. In either case, they had not yet pronounced judgment but instead they dragged her out in front of Yeshua/Jesus.
At the end of the story, Yeshua/Jesus tells her to sin no more so it looks like she may have committed adultery.
So in bringing the woman to Yeshua/Jesus, they were testing Him in another way. If He was a prophet, then He should be able to discern if she was guilty or not.
They knew Yeshua/Jesus had forgiven some people of their sins, e.g. the crippled man. However, the sins of the people whom He had forgiven had not been accused of any crime. The woman was accused of adultery, apparently even caught in the very act of adultery so there must have been witnesses willing to testify against her. So would Yeshua/Jesus fulfill the law or would He forgive her sins?
Beginning at Numbers 5:11, specifically verse 23, this gives insight into WHY Messiah wrote in the dirt and further insight into what He may have written.
These verses also talk about adultery; this portion of scripture has been called The Test for An Unfaithful Wife.
The Test for an Unfaithful Wife
In Numbers 5:11, the priest brings the woman accused of adultery and has her stand before the Lord and has her take an oath. He also sweeps up some dust and dirt from the tabernacle floor and puts that dirt into cup of holy water from the tabernacle.
The priest also pronounces a curse that if she is guilty, then when she drinks the dirty water, she will get deathly sick but if she is innocent, then she will not be harmed by drinking that cup of dirty water. But before she drinks that cup, the priest also writes down the curses that he pronounced on a scroll. Then he takes some holy water and rinses the scroll of curses into the cup of dirty water. So now the dirty cup of water has the curses in it as well. Then she is made to drink that cup of dirty water.
Is this why Yeshua/Jesus wrote in the dirt and possibly what He wrote?
Did Yeshua/Jesus write this woman’s name and her sins in the dirt in order to forgive her for her sins!
How is that possible?
In order for Him to forgive/pardon this woman’s sins and to let her go, He had to first write down her sins and put them in a cup of water and then He needed to drink that cup.
Yeshua/Jesus knew that very soon He would have to drink the cup of sin. This cup would contain not only this woman’s sin of adultery, it would contain your sin and my sin, it would contain the sin of Adam, it would and did contain all sin that has been or would ever be committed!
No wonder in the Garden of Gethsemane, He prays to the Father, if it were possible to take away this cup.
“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”
Has it ever occurred to us what cup Yeshua/Jesus was referring to here while He was praying to His Father?
Was it this bitter cup of sin?
Remember the Last Supper/Pesach Meal, immediately preceded the Garden of Gethsemane, which He and the disciples never finished.
During the meal, Messiah did something radical, something new, He changed the cup of the covenant of the Passover Meal to a new covenant.
There is no mention of them eating the lamb, just bread/sop and that which it was dipped in.
Why?
Because He was THE Pesach/Passover Lamb and why He said you must eat me! And drink my blood/wine/. Symbolic of the blood on the doorposts of the first Passover/Pesach.
Pesach has been covered in previous posts.
From the text, it appears that they left the Passover Meal and went to the Garden to pray; so Messiah and His disciples never finished the Passover Meal in the old tradition drinking the other cups of wine… However, He would finish the New Passover/Covenant as THE Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He would drink that cup of sin and condemnation for us; which has become our cup of redemption.
We drink this new cup of redemption during every Communion meal and someday soon, we will finish the new Pesach/Passover Meal with Yeshua/Jesus in Heaven at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. I will drink new with you in my fathers kingdom confirming and completing the covenant between us. Him the Bridegroom and those believers who make up The Bride of Messiah.
Another possibility as to why did He do such an strange thing?
Again the answer is in the Old Testament/Tenach, where there is a reference to almost all that Messiah said and did.
Why?
Because it was the Old Testament/Covenant that proved His claim to be the Messiah, fulfilling prophecy.
The Prophet Jeremiah gives us the answer to His action:
Jeremiah 17.13 O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake You shall be ashamed. Those who depart from Me shall be
written in the earth,
because they have forsaken the LORD,
The Fountain of Living Waters.
On the previous day Yeshua/Jesus had made His startling announcement to the crowd on the Temple Mount:
John 7.37-52 On the last day, that great day of the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of Living Water.”
Click link for more on Sukkot /Feast of Tabernacles
However, His announcement was not received with universal acclaim because:
Many from the crowd, when they heard this saying, said, “Truly this is the Prophet.” Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Will the Christ come out of Galilee?……So there was a division among the people because of Him.
There is no doubt that the ruling group of Scribes and Pharisees had rejected Him, and forsaken the LORD, as the Prophet Jeremiah wrote.
Then the Pharisees answered them, “Are you also deceived? Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in Him?
Yeshua/Jesus, who was Himself The Fountain of Living Waters had offered the people rivers of Living Water…..but His offer was rejected by the Scribes and Pharisees.
He symbolized their rejection of Him by stooping down and writing on the ground with His finger.
The aggressive response to His confirmation of Himself as Messiah was rooted in their fear and anger that their authority was being challenged. Therefore, Yeshua/Jesus wrote on the ground….as though He did not hear.
John 8:7 4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. 5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? 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.
His action of ignoring them, as though He did not hear, was in fulfillment of Psalm 66.18 and Isaiah 59.2:
Psalm 66.18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, the LORD will not hear.
Isaiah 59.2 Your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.
How did they react?
Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last.
They knew what the Scriptures said, and no doubt recognized the reference that Messiah made to Jeremiah 17.13, that those who depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD.
They would also have recognized why He seemed not to hear, because they were regarding iniquity in their hearts.
They were convicted by their conscience, and there was only one thing for them to do, leave, one by one.
However, there was another option for them. In Jeremiah 17.14, the following verse, is His offer of redemption:
Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for You are my praise.
It is very sad that they rejected every offer that He made.
There is another possible explanation that may be the answer and maybe we should ask why it is that none of the Gospel writers put in their account exactly what was written. Could it be that it was because it was obvious to those whom the account was written to at that time?
Did the onlookers of the day understand without explanation?
As we have seen in previous posts, many of the Hebrew idioms are included in the narrative and we miss it; as we both read and look at it with a Greek Western mindset.
The religious leaders became increasingly irritated by Yeshua/Jesus’ popularity. Thousands of people followed Him, some for His teachings and most because of the miracles He was doing among them, healing their sick.. And so, being jealous, did they come up with a plan?
It is worth noting here that this scene played out following His discourse on the beatitudes…..
and when He said this it was in context of the woman taken in adultery.
Again It is important that we look at this situation with a Hebraic thinking mind otherwise we interpret it with a Greek way of thinking and miss the truth of this account. The Bible is a Jewish book and this is a Jewish story and they understood without an explanation, which is probably why none was given!
They brought her to Yeshua/Jesus, knowing the Law of Moses said she must be stoned and also knowing that if Jesus/Yeshua said stone her, He would be going against the Law of Rome which forbade execution by Jews and if He said not to stone her, He was going against the law of Moses.
Almost between a rock and a hard place!
Were they trying to trap Him between 2 laws?
Remembering Moses law said stone her and also the man!
So He wrote in the dust of the earth,
and to a Jew, with a Hebraic mindset,
it means only one thing;
It’s a claim to be YeHoVeH/God !
to be the very same Who wrote the 10 sayings
with His finger on the stone.
was He in fact saying I wrote that law?
We miss that because we are not Jewish and what He wrote, is not as important as the point He was making by His actions. He was claiming to be responsible for that law.
She found herself between a rock and a hard place.
The rock in her case was the Rock of Ages, Messiah Himself; and the hard place of her impossible situation, was softened; not by the rocks of accusation and judgment falling on her, but of her falling on the hard ground/place at the feet of the Rock of her salvation.
Go and sin no more.
This was not for her alone but for ALL who fall at His feet.
Our accusers have been silenced
by the Blood of the Lamb
and though there is a saying
‘you can’t get blood from a stone’;
in the case of Messiah,
the rock of the ages;
the rosh pinah/corner stone Himself…
it may have TRUTH to it!
His redeeming Blood has flowed forth to pay for our sins and judgment upon us has been passed and withdrawn for ever. As long as we stay humble and repentant at His feet, covered in His blood.
Even as He spoke to His disciples in the sermon on the mount/beatitudes,
Moses said, but I say…. and this is what I meant when I gave that instruction.
He came to correct the perversion of His laws by men. He reminded them of another of Moses laws which says that, no one can become a witness in a criminal charge if they have ever committed the same crime so when He said John 8:7 let him who is without sin.
He wasn’t saying that you have to be perfect before you can punish someone else, which is more or less a Greek way of thinking.
That is impractical for no judge is sinless.
He was referring to: Ex 23:2 You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice.
Thou shalt not follow the multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause, following many, to divert judgment.
Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong and quoting the law which says:
if you have never committed adultery then you can be a witness in this case
and that’s when one by one they walked away John 8:9 beginning with the oldest..
so the witnesses were dismissed based on the law.
Then He asked her where are your accusers?
John 8:12 9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. 10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? 11 She said, No man, Lord.
Another point of the law stated in:
Deut. 19:15 15
A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.
Here are the passages they would have had in mind:
If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death. ~ Leviticus 20:10
If a man is caught lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman as well as the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel. – Deuteronomy 22:22
Based on the Scripture above, some would also ask the obvious question: if she was caught in the very act of adultery, that means she wasn’t alone. So where is the man?
The relevant legal question at this juncture is whether the woman is married or not.
Under Torah law, adultery is a question of exclusivity and ownership. A married woman’s sexuality is “owned” by her husband, but not vice versa. This means, if the woman is not married, she has committed adultery and is under the potential sentence of death. If she is married, then both she and the man are under that potential sentence, because the man has violated the sexual “ownership” of another man. However, even if she was married, it is not outside of the realm of possibility that men in a patriarchal system could come to an arrangement on how to proceed, leaving the man out of it, especially given the socio-political maneuverings of the scribes and Pharisees to trap Messiah.
It seems clear that the whole thing is a set up because should Yeshua/Jesus order her to be stoned, He upholds Jewish law, but breaks Roman law!
This was because the Jews who were living under Roman occupation did not have the unilateral rights to capital punishment for adultery.
If Yeshua/Jesus condemns the stoning, He breaks Jewish law and risked being discredited as being a compromiser who is soft on crime.
Jesus/Yeshua knew it was a set up, but He still needed to answer. Which, of course, He did by saying very little. What He wrote may have been just as powerful due to the fact that there had to be 2 or 3 witnesses and as there were no witnesses then the case was voided.
John 8:11. Neither do I condemn you but go and sin no more.
We should remember that mercy is not offered to us to go back into sin.
Was the point He was making simply, that He knew the Law better than her accusers did… and used Moses law to bring justice to the situation. And at this time He says John 8:12 declaring that He was the Light of the world.
You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.
I AM the Light of the world.
Matthew 5:14-16
Anochi – I AM that I AM
and
John 8:12. You are the light of the world.
He said of Himself and His disciples,
He did not say He was the salt of the earth!
Light, it’s not so much what we say or do, it’s what we are. If we follow Him we will not fall into sin, tempted and drawn away by our own lusts. James 1:13-14
Follow Him and walk in the light and not be living and walking in darkness.
Matthew 4:16.
He exposed their way and showed
His WAY which is Truth; and truth is love/ love is truth.
Matt 5:14-16 is
showing the higher standard of moral living in a wicked and adulterous generation. Good action is not doing good things, so much as being, and it proceeds to list the WAY, which is impossible for anyone to live up to in the natural but we are supernatural and as we press in personally, that’s what gives the glory to the Lord because its not us, It’s Him IN us. It’s supernatural NOT to worry! Don’t think of what you will eat or wear because our needs are met.
It is worth noting that this woman was likely a victim of entrapment and they were tempting Him, it was a trap, a snare.
Matt 22:15 tells us the Pharisees were always plotting how they could trap Him with a question.
If He gave her mercy, it would mean He was compromising concerning adultery and therefore an enemy of their moral law; but if Yeshua/Jesus stoned her, then all His teaching about mercy and forgiveness was invalidated.
John 8:7 4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? 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.
Verses 7, 8. – But when they continued asking him; he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and with his finger was writing on the ground.
another version says:
John 8:7. So when they continued asking him. For observing that he put himself in such a posture, they concluded that they had puzzled and perplexed him, and that he knew not what to say; and therefore they were more urgent for a speedy answer, hoping they should get an advantage of him; and that they should be able to expose him, and that his confusion would appear to all the people:
7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
One by one they walked away, “beginning with the oldest” until it was only Jesus left with the woman. Jesus asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said.
“Neither do I condemn you, ” Jesus declared. “Go and sin no more.”
This was not normal, it never happened.
Imagine her shock!
Not only was she allowed to live but she is free to go.
Surely, He knew very soon, He would be paying the penalty not only for her adultery, but also for the crowd’s hatred, and for the religious leaders’ callous arrogance… on a cross.
The sins of the whole world would fall on Him, as He paid the price for our forgiveness and redemption.
Though He was YeHoVeh/God, the only one with the right to judge her, He was able to honestly tell this woman, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”
At that time, Messiah said He did not come to judge, but came to seek and to save the lost.
He is our Savior.
He changes the lives of those who know Him and when He returns He will be as judge.
At the end of the story, Yeshua/Jesus and the woman are the only ones left. Not even His disciples are present.
Why were only He and the woman left?
Did everyone leave because everyone has been indicted?
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth…. From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. . (John 1:14;16-17)
The Scribes and Pharisees came with the letter of Moses’ law for sneaky, ungodly purposes. Yeshua/Jesus knew all this and responded accordingly, with the spirit of the law, which is full of grace.
When He tells her that He doesn’t condemn her, and that she should stop sinning. Was He saying: I do not condemn you and the truth of the law is what you did was wrong, stop it.
Can we assume He is referring not only to the adultery. She, like all of us, probably has more than one secret shame, as well as patterns of unholiness.
The scribes and the Pharisees weren’t wrong: the woman had sinned; but she was a pawn, merely a means to an end, because their purpose and goal in revealing her sin was condemnation. They debased her more than the man she was caught with and not just her but it was also against Yeshua/Jesus.
As we are continually seeing everything in the Bible is connected, woven together in a unique way. Yeshua/Jesus was purposefully writing in the dirt. Was He writing her sin and not only hers but writing all of our sins? He would not only drink that cup of sin and condemnation, but absorbed it all and eradicated it as if sin had never existed.
He will separate our sins from us.
Psalm 103:12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”
The phrase
as far as the east is from the west
is meant to communicate in infinite space.
East is in one direction, and west is in the other.
Implying as if we never sinned.
The bad news is that we are all law-breakers.
No one can keep the law perfectly.
As Paul wrote,
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
Rom. 3:23.
But The Good News is
He came not to condemn the world, but to offer salvation.
He came into the world to make dead men live.
Forgiveness for repentant hearts…
Although the Law was written in stone, our sins need not be. Yeshua/Jesus offers forgiveness, and as the Scripture tells us, fulfilling Psalm. 103:12.
Why did Yeshua/Jesus write in the dirt?
The Last Adam wrote in the very dirt that He created the First Adam out of but…
unlike words in stone that cannot be changed, what is written in sand/dirt can be wiped away.
This is why He came and is exactly what He wants to do for us.
All we need to do is accept the grace He offers by repenting of our sins and He will remove those sins forever.
There may be much much more than we know to His final words.
IT IS FINISHED!
May His true Shalom/Peace
rest upon each one in Jesus/Yeshuas’ Name.
‘Mishpachah’ ‘Family’
משפחה
Mish-pa-KHa Mish-pa-KHa
you are greatly loved and prayed for daily..
Happy Shavuot and may every reader be filled to overflowing
with His Ruach!
There may have been some confusion as to the timing of Shavuot 2021 which was a two-day holiday, celebrated from sunset on May 16 until nightfall on May 18. Orthodox Jews state it coincides with the date that God gave the Torah to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai more than 3,300 years ago. It comes after 49 days of counting the Omer.
For Messianic Believers we are also remembering the outpouring of His Spirit of Holiness/Ruach Ha Kodesh recorded in Acts 2:1-13
Pentecost is also dated according to this calendar below.
For more on Shavuot click links below:
https://www.minimannamoments.com/50-days-later-an-earthly-and-spiritual-harvest-pentecost-shavuot/
https://www.minimannamoments.com/2-x-3000-a-marriage-made-in-heaven/
NOT SURE if you are part of His Family?
YOU CAN BE..
Say the following and mean it from your heart…
Heavenly Father I come to you in the Name of Jesus/Yeshua asking for forgiveness of my sins for which I am truly sorry. I repent of them all and turn away from my past.
I believe with my heart and confess with my mouth that Jesus/Yeshua is your Son and that He came in the flesh and He died on the cross at calvary to pay the price for my sin, so that I might be forgiven and have eternal life in the kingdom of Heaven. Father I believe that Jesus/Yeshua rose from the dead and I ask you to come into my life right now and be my personal Savior and Lord and I will worship you all the days of my life.
Because your word is truth, I say that I am now forgiven and born again in my spirit and by faith I am washed clean with the Blood of Jesus/Yeshua. Thank you that you have accepted me into your family in Jesus’/Yeshua’s name. Amen.
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