John tells us the motive directly: "This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him" (John 8:6). The question was a trap, and the woman was the bait. Barnes lays out the snare: if Jesus said she should die, they could accuse Him of "claiming power which belonged to the Romans"; if He decided otherwise, "they would have alleged that he denied the authority of the law." Matthew Henry hears the scorn in their words, as if to say, what do you say, "who pretendest to be a teacher come from God to repeal old laws and enact new ones?" They were not seeking justice or mercy but a charge against Jesus.

At first Jesus said nothing. He "stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not" (John 8:6). When they kept asking, He stood and said, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," and stooped to write again (John 8:7-8). "Being convicted by their own conscience," they "went out one by one, beginning at the eldest" (John 8:9). Jesus neither set aside the law nor stepped into their trap, and then He spoke to the woman herself (John 8:10-11).

The law of Moses set death as the penalty for adultery, for both "the adulterer and the adulteress" (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22), as Barnes notes. Stoning is named for a betrothed woman (Deuteronomy 22:23-24). Gill explains that Jewish tradition distinguished the cases: a daughter of Israel who was "betrothed, but not married" was to be stoned, while a married woman was put to death another way. The law named both guilty parties for death, yet only the woman was brought.

The trap depended on Roman rule. Barnes notes that the power of putting to death "belonged to the Romans," so an answer for stoning could be reported as rebellion. Many ancient manuscripts do not contain John 7:53-8:11, and the ESV marks it in brackets. Barnes, after weighing the evidence, says, "It is not easy to decide the question whether it be a genuine part of the New Testament or not."

The accusers offered Jesus two choices: the law or mercy. He refused the false choice. He did not deny that the law was just, and He did not excuse sin. Instead He turned the question back on the judges, and the law that condemned the woman exposed them as well (John 8:7-9). Barnes reads "without sin" as "without this particular sin; he who has not himself been guilty of this very crime."

Matthew Henry observes that Jesus neither reflected on the law nor excused the woman's guilt, and neither encouraged the prosecution nor approved their anger. Later in this chapter Jesus would say, "Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man" (John 8:15). His answer shows a God whose justice searches every heart, the accusers' included.