=Ch. 7:53 to 8:1, 2. Every man went unto his own house; Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives.= The force of the contrast is impaired by the unfortunate and unnatural break between the two clauses of what should be printed as a single sentence. The auditors had homes; Jesus had no where to lay his head; and if, as is probable, this incident belongs to the Passion week, it was not safe for him to spend a night within the city walls. He either spent it on the mount or went beyond it to Bethany, the home of his friends Martha and Mary.--=He sat down and taught them.= One of the indications that this passage is not from John; for “it is not in John’s manner to relate that Jesus taught them, without relating what he taught” (_Alford_). [Illustration: THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. (From the wall of Jerusalem.)] 3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, 4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. 5 Now[305] Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? [305] Lev. 20:10. =3-5. Brought unto him a woman.= There was no reason why they should have brought her to him, except for the purpose of involving him in difficulty.--=When they had set her in the midst.= This public exposure to shame was itself a terrible punishment, and aroused the pity, the shame, and the indignation of Jesus. It was not done in the interest of public morals. They were flagrantly disregarded in this obtrusion of a public scandal into the midst of the temple worship, by accusers who cared not for her, nor for the general public, if they could but involve in perplexity and bring into disrepute the Rabbi whom they so bitterly hated.--=In the very act.= The man was equally amenable under the Mosaic law to the death penalty (Lev. 20:10; Deut. 22:22). But the man they had let go; for then, as now, society punished the guilty woman, but not the guilty man.--=That such should be stoned.= Stoning was only commanded by Moses for unfaithfulness in a betrothed virgin (Deut. 22:23, 24). But infidelity in a wife is made by the preceding verse punishable with death, and perhaps, by implication, the same form of death. [Illustration: THE WOMAN AND HER ACCUSERS. “_He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone at her._”] 6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with _his_ finger wrote on the ground, _as though he heard them not_.