In Sunday’s Gospel (John 8:1–12), Jesus writes on the ground in response to the Pharisees’ question of whether an adulterous woman should be stoned. Had he agreed, they would have accused him to the Romans for illegally promoting the Jews’ right to execute wrongdoers; had he refused, they would have charged him with disobedience to the law of Moses.
His silent response is mysterious, but it could evoke a verse from Jeremiah: “Those who turn away from thee shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water” (Jeremiah 17:13). Jesus perhaps writes the names of those Pharisees in the dust because they have rejected him by setting their trap. He has just presented himself as “a fountain of living water” in the previous chapter (John 7:37–38): “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’”
