John 8:6 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

This they said, tempting him, &c.— The reason upon which they grounded their insidious intention was, that had he declared against stoning the adulterers, they certainly would have represented him to the people, as contradicting Moses, and favouringadultery; hoping by that means to have lessened his authority with them. On the other hand, had he ordered her to be stoned, it would have afforded a plausible pretence for accusing him to the governor, as a person who stirred up the people to rebellion; the Romans, who had now taken the determination of life and death into their own hands, having new-modelled the laws of Judea according to their own jurisprudence; and, in particular, not exercising such severity of punishment upon the women who were guilty of adultery. We may observe further, that the Jewish sanhedrim sat by licence from the Roman governor; and though they had a right to try capital causes, it was necessary that the sentence which they passed should be recognized and allowed by the Roman governor, before it could be carried into execution. See Ch. John 19:10 and Matthew 27:2. For Christ, therefore, to have undertaken the decision of this case, would have rendered him immediately obnoxious to the Romans, as well as to the sanhedrim; and, had he condemned her, a new occasion of offence must have arisen to Pilate in consequence of that, if execution had been ordered without application to him; and to the Jews, if Christ had directed such an application to be made; so that the snare here was much the same with that afterwards laid for him, in the question about the lawfulness of paying the tribute, Matthew 22:17; Matthew 22:46. Jesus fully knew their craft and wickedness, and regulated his conduct toward these depraved hypocrites accordingly; for he made them no answer. He also now, as on other occasions, declined assuming the character and office of a civil magistrate. Besides, the persons who demanded his opinion, were by no means the judges to whom the execution of the law was committed; but Pharisees who at bottom were gross hypocrites, notwithstanding they expressed the greatest concern for the honour of the divine law. But whatever was the reason, Jesus did not encourage this prosecution, but stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground as though he heard, or regarded, them not. There was most probably a language in the action itself, either to intimate that thesehypocritical Pharisees should be themselves, as the prophet expresses it, Jeremiah 17:13 written in the earth, or that they were to attend to what is written. But we do not pretend to determine any thing on this point; saying only with a great critic on these words, Nescire velle quae magister optimus nescire nos vult, erudite inscitia est: "To be willing to continue ignorant of what our great Master has thought fit to conceal, is no inconsiderable part of Christian learning."