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Commentaries
English
John
  
c) Legalists bring an adulteress to Jesus for trial
(John 8:1-11)
1But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.2At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathers round him, and he sat down to teach them.3The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group4and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.5In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such a woman. Now what do you say?"6They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.


The members of the Council departed in anger to their homes, because Jesus had slipped from their hands. The crowds assumed that their leaders had allowed Jesus the freedom to speak in the temple. But these members persisted in spying on him to trap him. Jesus went out of the city walls at evening, crossing the Kidron valley.
Next day Jesus returned to the city center, entering the crowded temple. He did not flee the capital at the end of the Feast of the Tabernacles, but continued to circulate among his foes. The Pharisees acted in the capacity of a moral police force, specially as the feast was an occasion of jollity and wine-bibbing. They got hold of a woman in adultery. It occurred to them to test Jesus with this case. Any leniency on his part would be seen by God and men as transgressing the traditions of the nation. But to insist on the legal penalty would prove his severity and lose him his popularity. His judgment on the woman would be a judgment on every man disgraced by moral blemishes. So they awaited his judgment anxiously.