The basis of Jesus’ writing on the ground is in Jeremiah 17:13;
O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the LORD, the spring of living water [NIV]
Today’s English Version says it better:
LORD, you are Israel’s hope; all who abandon you will be put to shame. They will disappear like names written in the dust, because they have abandoned you, the LORD, the spring of fresh water.
Whether the translators rendered the word as “dust,” “land,” “earth” or “ground” makes very little difference. The reason for such observation follows the word “because.” They disappeared because they had abandoned … the spring of fresh water. If there was no water, the land, earth or ground was “dust.” So the best rendering seems to be “dust.”
The prophet concludes his prediction with the expression of his own trust in Yahweh, and confidence that the divine justice will finally be vindicated by the punishment of the wicked. Shall be written in the earth; i.e., their names shall quickly disappear, unlike those graven in the rock forever (Job 19:24). A board covered with sand is used in the East to this day in schools for giving lessons in writing: but writing inscribed on such materials is intended to be immediately obliterated. Equally fleeting is the existence of those who forsake God. “All men are written somewhere, the saints in heaven, but sinners upon earth” (Origen). Verse 15 … shows that this prophecy was written before any very signal fulfillment of Jeremiah’s words had taken place, and prior therefore to the capture of Jerusalem at the close of Jehoiakim’s life.
I know that the following quote is complex, but I thought that the entire quote was necessary, even though many reading this do not know Hebrew and the associated wording. My intent is to get before you the “departing” and how “swiftly” that it would happen to the first century Israelites.
All who forsake the Lord come to shame. This word the Lord confirms through the mouth of the prophet in the second part of the verse.
Those that depart from thee (so some read it) shall be written in the earth. They shall soon be blotted out, as that is which is written in the dust. They shall be trampled upon and exposed to contempt. They belong to the earth, and shall be numbered among earthly people, who lay up their treasure on earth and whose names are not written in heaven. And they deserve to be thus written with the fools in Israel, that their folly may be made manifest unto all, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters (that is, spring waters), and that for broken cisterns.
Jesus knew that they wanted to trap him into making a mistake. He did not contradict the law – he told them to stone her, but let the one without sin be the first judge and cast the first stone. Before and after that statement, he wrote in the sand. Those are the only two instances that we know of that Jesus wrote anything. What did he write and why did he write it? The answer is to be found in Jer. 17:13.
Without exactly saying what Jesus wrote, the context, along with Jer. 17:13 should tell us what he wrote. He wrote the names and ages of each of the persons who were there, and in the exact order of their age, beginning with the oldest, ending with the youngest.
Just think. They knew that they had never met Jesus before. Therefore, he had no way of knowing who they were, much less knowing how old they were. Now, here is Jesus writing each of their names and their ages, in the exact order of their ages, beginning with the oldest one, ending with the last (other translations state it that way), in the dust, with his finger.
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