What did Jesus really write in the sand?

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anhphan

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In John 8, the scribes and Pharisees brought along a woman who committed adultery to test Jesus. However, he bent down and started writing on the ground with his finger. What was he writing? Why did he have to do that?
I highly appreciate your helps!
 
I don’t think anyone definitively knows what he wrote.

I once heard a homily that said that Jesus was writing the sins of the pharisees in generic ways. Like “blasphemer”, “usurer”, “liar” and so on. It was a sobering reminder to them of their own issues.

I like that, so I hang on to it although it’s obviously not canon.
 
The sins of the people who were making the accusations.

Or the alphabet.

Or a sandcastle.
 
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.
(Jerimiah 17:13)
 
anhphan said:
In John 8, the scribes and Pharisees brought along a woman who committed adultery to test Jesus. However, he bent down and started writing on the ground with his finger. What was he writing? Why did he have to do that?
I highly appreciate your helps!
Click to expand...
We have had lots and lots of threads on this.
Nobody can answer this question because nobody knows.
All you will get is speculation.
 
Another possibility I’ve heard (although, again, no one knows) is that he was rewriting the law. If we compare this Gospel reading with the reading from Exodus where Moses gets the Ten Commandments, those were written by the finger of God on the stone tablets. Jesus is writing in the sand… a less rigid, new law of change.
 
humbleseeker said:
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.
(Jerimiah 17:13)
Click to expand...
Agreed. From my understanding this is probably what Jesus was writing and it seems the most helpful in understanding the verse and when viewed in this context it seems to fit the OT verse in Jeremias.
 
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Well they left one by one starting with the eldest.
I agree we don’t know. I don’t believe it was their sins but rather clues to their sins. I like Joe’s place, Peggy Sue etc. something very personal to each sinner. The question is what would he write for me or you?
 
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Anything that is written on the ground with your finger will become obscure and invisible very quickly. Maybe Jesus was comparing her past sins to the writing on the ground.

Just a thought.
 
The commentary in the Didache Bible, says that although we can only speculate what Christ was writing, there is a connection with God’s finger writing on the tablets at Mt Sinai and the condemnation written on the walls of King Belshazzar’s palace.
 
Here is my guess, which I have never read anywhere. My unique interpretation! lol
Ok. When the Holy Spirit came down and everyone heard the preaching of the Gospel in their own language, I think that the same thing happened when Jesus wrote in the sand. It was not recorded what he wrote because the apostles discussed it afterward and one said ‘he wrote this…’ and another said ‘no, he wrote that’, and they could not agree. What they knew was that it was unique to their own personal situation, their own failings. Jesus wrote one word in the sand and everyone saw something different. An arrow hit straight to their hearts. They could not speak, they walked away, and pondered that moment of truth and light in their hearts.

No one wants to broadcast that they saw ‘thief’, ‘adulterer’, ‘liar’… Then they were angry and looked for a way to kill him.
 
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