Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? That such should be stoned - It is not strictly true that Moses ordered adultery in general to be punished by stoning. The law simply says that the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death. Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22. The rabbins say they were strangled. This they affirm was the ordinary mode of punishment, where the species of death was not marked in the law, If the person guilty of an act of this kind had been betrothed, but not married, she was to be stoned: Deuteronomy 22:23. But if she was the daughter of a priest, she was to be burned alive: Leviticus 16:9. It appears, from Ezekiel 16:38, Ezekiel 16:40, that adulteresses in the time of that prophet were stoned, and pierced with a sword.
Selden and Fagius suppose that this woman's case was the same with that mentioned, Deuteronomy 22:23. If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto a husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; then ye shall stone them with stones that they die, the damsel because she cried not, and the man because he hath humbled his neighbors wife. As the Pharisees spoke of stoning the woman, it is possible this was her case; and some suppose that the apparent indulgence with which our Lord treated her insinuates that she had suffered some sort of violence, though not entirely innocent. Therefore he said, I do not condemn thee, i.e. to death, because violence had been used. Sin no more. Nevertheless thou art in certain respects guilty; thou mightest have made more resistance.