Dr. Bergsma doesn't touch on this verse in his reflections for this week, but we discussed it quite a bit in our parish Bible study yesterday. There are several schools of thought on what (if anything) he was writing on the ground:
• There is no agreement among the Early Church Fathers or scholars on what Jesus was writing, or if he was really even writing actual words. The literal Greek text implies that he was “tracing” on the ground. This has been interpreted by some to be an indication by Jesus that he was not interested in the charges they were bringing up against this woman.
• For some, however, it recalls that the ten commandments were written “by the finger of God” (Exodus 31:18).
• Others think he may have been writing down the sins of those who were condemning the adulterous woman.
• It also recalls Daniel 5:5 where the finger of God writes judgement against the Babylonians.
• Still others (myself among them) speculate he may have been writing Jeremiah 17:13:
Jer. 17:13 “O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake thee shall be put to shame; those who turn away from thee shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water.”
• Recall that just previously (in Chapter 7) at the Feast of Booths (where each day of the feast water from the pool of Siloam was ritually poured out on the altar) Jesus had proclaimed:
John 7:38 “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’”
John 4:14 [Even earlier with the Samaritan woman at the well] “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
• They may not have gotten the water reference, but they may have been stung by Jesus’ words about “being without sin” along with Jeremiah’s condemnation of those who have “forsaken” and “turned away from the Lord”. Since the Pharisees have rejected Jesus, this applies to them.