Location

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act.

When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court. (John 8:3-4, 9)

These words He spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one seized Him, because His hour had not yet come. (John 8:20)

I want to know what is significant about the identity of the places where these things took place relative to what happened or what was said. It seems clear that John wants to point out for some reason the location of each event and it seems there might be some insights that a Jew might intuitively know that could greatly enhance this passage if we were aware of them. Why is this verse placed right where it is?

What I am noticing so far is a couple of clues. First, the woman was placed in the center to achieve maximum exposure for the setup that the leaders had arranged to entrap Jesus. They wanted to discredit and embarrass Him as much as possible and so they chose the location with the greatest public exposure in which to pull off their cruel stunt. Not knowing the layout of the temple complex very well I am not sure where this may have been, but I would like to learn more about it.

Second, it seems somewhat obvious that the main topic of the following section revolved about judging and witnessing and other such legal type issues. But it seems rather curious to me that legal issues should have such close linkage to the treasury of the temple. I am sure there is something very potent behind this but I just don't yet have enough information to put it together. I am leaving this question up to Father to explain it to me through whatever means He chooses.

But one thing did come out as I reviewed this section. In the verse previous to this the Jews asked Jesus where His Father was. I had not thought of it before, but they were literally standing in what everyone considered the most sacred house on earth. Therefore they were standing in God's house, the Father of Jesus, and not only that they were standing in what humans considered one of the most valuable areas of the house, the place where all the money was kept. And for the Jews the money was far more important to them than the Most Holy Place. But from heaven's perspective the real treasure that God had to offer was in the Most Holy Place, the part of God's model that represented the deepest intimacy with the very heart of God, the greatest gift that He longs for each one of us to embrace.

Immediately after this section Jesus moves into talking about going away. It would seem that the text might imply that Jesus may have no longer been standing in the treasury when He talked about that. Since the narrative often does not spell out some of the details or how long of a pause there was between events or dialogs, the little clues that are there should be taken seriously. If John specifically mentioned Jesus speaking verses 12-19 in the treasury, then it might be valid to assume that the following discussion may well have happened somewhere else. Again, it might be helpful to be more acquainted with the physical layout of the temple grounds to see how this might be significant if it is.

One thing seems clear however. All of the events of this chapter took place on the temple grounds. The last verse of this chapter explicitly states that when things got so hot for Him that they took up stones to kill Him, at that point Jesus left the temple. So from the time where they dumped the woman caught in adultery at His feet until He plainly stated that He was the great I AM from all eternity, everything transpired somewhere on the temple grounds but evidently in different parts of it.