John 8:5

Ver. 5. Stoning was ordained by Moses only for the case of an unfaithful betrothed virgin (Deu 22:23-24); for the adulterous wife, the kind of death was not determined (Lev 20:10). According to the Talmud, where the penalty is not specified, the law meant, not stoning, but strangling. And Meyer infers from this that this woman was an unfaithful betrothed virgin. This supposition is neither natural nor necessary. The declarations of the Talmud do not form a law for the time of Jesus. Tholuck, Ewald and Keil, as it seems to me, rightly hold, that where the law was silent, it was rather the punishment of stoning which was inflicted. This view is confirmed by John 8:2; John 8:27 of the chapter cited (Leviticus 20), where the penalty of death, not specified in John 8:10, is expressly designated as that by stoning. Comp. also Exodus 31:4; Exodus 35:2, where the penalty of death is ordained for violators of the Sabbath, with Num. 5:32-34, where this punishment is inflicted, without any new determination having been given, under the form of stoning.