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What Did Jesus Write on the Ground?

 

 

It is recorded in the Bible that, in an attempt to set a trap against Jesus, the Scribes and Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman caught in adultery and asked Him if she should be stoned to death as commanded in the Law of Moses. Then without answering, Jesus stooped down to write on the ground with his finger. 

 

This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear. ~ John 8:6

 

 

God Writes with His Finger

 

Before we make a guess on what Jesus wrote, let us first look at two incidents when God wrote with His finger.

 

    Ten Commandments

 

The first recorded incident of God writing with His finger was the Ten Commandments written on the stone tablets. 

 

And when He (the Lord) had made an end of speaking with him (Moses) on Mount Sinai, He gave Moses two tablets of the Testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God. ~ Exodus 31:18

 

    Judgment on Belshazzar, King of Babylon

 

The second recorded incident was when Belshazzar who succeeded his father to become king of Babylon used vessels taken from the temple in Jerusalem to feast and to worship his idols. A man's hand suddenly appeared out of nowhere which wrote the judgement of Belshazzar on the wall. That very night, Belshazzar was slain and his kingdom was taken away from him.

 

Belshazzar the king made a great feast for a thousand of his lords … They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone. In the same hour the fingers of a man’s hand appeared and wrote opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace …Then Daniel answered, and said before the king, “Let your gifts be for yourself, and give your rewards to another; yet I will read the writing to the king, and make known to him the interpretation. This is the interpretation of each word. MENE: God has numbered your kingdom, and finished it; TEKEL: You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting; PERES: Your kingdom has been divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.” …That very night Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, was slain. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old. ~ Daniel 5:1-30

 

 

Jesus is God

 

If we can perceive that Jesus is God, it would be easy for us to speculate that what Jesus wrote was the Law of God or judgements on unlawful deeds. Both the Scribes and Pharisees should know these Laws very well, which probably explains why they left the scene one by one silently while Jesus was writing on the ground.

 

So when they continued asking Him (Jesus), He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being[ convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. ~ John 8:7-9