Your companion … by covenant
(Malachi 2:14)

Introduction

The cohesiveness of the bond in marriage is strong, and the interfacing of the marriage partners holds potential for intimate companionship; but marriage itself is more properly a covenant/relationship. In Malachi 2:14, God reprimands certain Israelite men for dealing treacherously with the wives of their youth, with whom they had a covenant.⁵³ These husbands had divorced their wives to marry women of the land. What exactly is a covenant, and what specifically does a marriage covenant involve?⁵⁴ A covenant is, simply put, an agreement between two parties. The agreement might be either public (e.g., Gen. 23) or private (1 Sam. 18:3). Generally, a covenant was made to establish some legal position. In fact, the Akkadian word burnt, which means precisely that, is thought by many scholars to be the basis of our Hebrew word berit.⁵⁵ Covenantal agreement in biblical times had four elements: parties, conditions, results, security.⁵⁶

The Parties of the Covenant: Equal or Unequal?

The parties in a covenant might be individuals (1 Sam. 18:3) or large groups (Gen. 23), and the relation these parties bore to each other might be one of parity or disparity. In Old Testament marriage, were the partner equals, or was one the servant of the other? The focus is often on the supporting partner.

A Helper Suitable

Given the Old Testament emphasis on the husband paying a price for the bride (e.g., Exod. 22:17) and the New Testament emphasis on the “headship” of the husband (e.g., Eph. 5:22 ff.), one might suppose that the Bible understands the marriage agreement as being between unequals. That is incorrect. In the first place, Genesis 1:26 ff. identifies men and women as equal representatives of the divine Image (see chap. 1). When this is coupled to the second chapter of Genesis, in which God creates the woman as a “helper suitable” for Adam, and when it is understood that these latter words, in the Hebrew, imply not inequality but rather the supportive help of equals, one begins to get a better picture of the nature of their covenant relation. Adam recognized an aspect of their equality when he spoke of their common human bond (v. 23).

Not a Slave

An even clearer picture of their status relation is revealed by a close analysis of the concubinage laws. Leviticus 19:20 states a law governing the infidelity of a concubine to her master. It reads,

Now if a man lies carnally with a woman who is a slave acquired for another man, but who has in no way been redeemed, nor given her freedom, there shall be punishment; they shall not, however, be put to death, because she was not slave (Emphasis added.)

What this is saying is that in concubinage the woman is judged differently than in a “full marriage.” This reminds us of our previous comments about the terms employed of the partners. Baali implied “master,” whereas ishi implied status equality. Status equality, in turn, reminds us of the intimate companionship of a covenantal relationship. The partners are seen as “companions,” that is, two individuals bound together as equals.

None of this should be construed as denying the biblical teaching that, within the marriage relationship, the husband is endowed with the qualities necessary for and has the responsibility to be the leader of the team. Even in teams of horses, one is commonly the lead horse. The fact that the man is the leader of the unit, the “head” as compared to “the body,” does not make him higher in personhood. Nor does it mean that his wife is less than an equal in terms of partnership. This is admittedly difficult to grasp. They are equally persons, equal partners, different in role responsibilities (with the husband being the final authority in familial decisions).⁵⁷

Worthy of a “Bride Price”

Modern people, when reading “bride price” passages in the Law, often jump to the conclusion that to pay for the bride amounts to her having been sold, and that this reduces her to the level of a slave.⁵⁸ It is my conviction, however, that the God who is neither male nor female but who is the Judge of all the world would not do wrong. It is He who has inspired these passages. When we fathom His intentions, we come to see the justice and realism such passages express. Recognizing the potential for irresponsibility in husbands, these laws provide one of the best means for the woman’s family to discern the sincerity of a potential husband. Only a sincere suitor will place a value on his bride equal to nearly a year’s wages.⁵⁹ Her father, in turn, was expected to keep—perhaps to invest—the money for the woman’s future possible needs (cf. Gen. 31:15). The man who disregarded commitment and had uncovenanted relations with an unmarried woman⁶⁰ was required to “pay money equal to the bride price for virgins” to the girl’s father (Exod. 22:17). A man who raped a virgin was charged fifty months’ wages (Deut. 22:29), and a man who publicly defamed his wife had to pay her father a hundred months’ wages (Deut. 22:19). In each case, the money was to ensure proper, future provision for the woman.

It functioned as collateral would in a loan. As such, it was a sort of prepaid alimony, to cover the woman’s needs against the possibility of unjust treatment or release by her husband—as if someone defaulted on a loan. This is based upon Exodus 21:11, where a mistreated concubine—a half wife, was to be released “without payment of money.” Although this passage deals with concubines, it would seem to be in harmony with Genesis 31:15, which deals with full wives that had been “sold” like concubines (as Laban sold Rachel and Leah). There will be further discussion about the use of concubine passages in a later section.

A Willing Partner

If marriage is an agreement between equals, what part, if any, did the woman play in consenting to the marriage insofar as man ancient marriages were arranged by the families? Genesis 24 would seem to present us with a realistic picture. There, in the story of the procuring of a wife for Isaac, the servant of Abraham asks him what he is to do if “the woman will not be willing to follow me to this land.” The striking thing about this is that the servant did not know who the woman would be; his question seems to imply that women generally exercised the right to determine their marital partner. And though there may have been exceptions, I believe that it is safe to conclude that this was the rule in biblical times, at least among the ancestors of the Israelites.⁶¹

The Conditions of the Covenant

If the partners are considered equals in their covenant, we would speak of the covenant as “bi-lateral.” And realizing that the marriage covenant is a bilateral agreement is a significant point to which the inquirer into the biblical view of divorce can come. For, as is pointed out about such covenants, they are “entirely conditional upon the acceptance and fulfillment” of the obligations to which the parties have agreed. Indeed, the authors of the article “Covenants” in Wycliffe Bible Dictionary state that “all human covenants are bilateral and conditional.”⁶²

Conditional or Unconditional Commitment?

The astute reader will foresee the implications regarding the breakup of marriage that arise from such a view of covenant, namely, if the marriage vows are broken, the covenant is off, and a divorce writ is only a public statement of the facts. Those who are opposed to these implications may respond by opting for the obvious alternative, namely, that marriage is unconditional. Their major source of biblical support comes often from verses that analogically relate human marriages (a) to God’s unconditional relation to his chosen “bride,” the Church (Eph. 5:22-33) and (b) to the Abrahamic covenant (Gen. 15). From these passages the argument is drawn that, since God is faithful even though we are not, we should do the same with our spouses, since we should love them the way Christ loves the Church (Eph. 5:25). The husband should present his wife to the Father, just as Christ will present his bride the Church to the Father (5:26-27).

This sort of reasoning has several mortal deficiencies. First, as I have already had occasion to point out, there are dissimilarities as well as similarities in analogical arguments. Just as permanence is not specifically mentioned as a similarity, so too, an “unconditional” aspect of human covenants is likewise not stated. The fact that God makes unconditional covenants and that God draws analogies between his relationships and human relationships does not mean that human relationships are ever unconditional. The burden of the proof rests upon anyone who affirms such a correspondence. It will not do in interpreting analogies to bring in unexpressed elements and compare them simply because they exist in one of the relationships. We must remember that this sort of “smuggling” works in both directions. For example, human husbands do not always know what is best for their wives and families, but this fact does not lead me to suggest that Christ is sometimes unaware of the needs of the Church. By the same token, the fact that Christ may commit himself unconditionally to the Church should not lead us to infer that human marriages are unconditional. The very fact that conditions are not expressly discussed in the passage is prima facie evidence that God does not intend the reader of the Ephesian letter to draw implications about such conditions from it.

Some might suggest that verses 26 and 27 offer support for the existence of an unconditional aspect to human marriages. These verses mention that Christ will present his bride the Church to himself in all her glory. Does this not refer to the eschaton? And does this not imply a permanent and unconditional relationship? And, if these are implied, does this not mean that unconditional elements are germane to the analogy to human marriages? Not really. As we noted in chapter 1, there are several aspects of the Christ-Church relationship in Ephesians 5:22-33 that clearly go beyond the analogy to human marriages. The Christ-Church relationship is mysterious, according to verse 32, but that verse also mentions that marriage is not. Verse 23 notes that Christ is the Savior of the “body,” but verse 24 begins with “but”: but this is not true of the husband’s relationship to the wife or of her relationship to her husband; the husband is not the savior of the wife. The husband is the “head,” but not the savior. So too, husbands should be self-sacrificing for their wives, just as Christ is for the Church (v. 25). But is the husband the “sanctifier” of the wife (v. 26)? In other words, the presence of contrasting elements in the analogy requires us to use caution in drawing correspondences between points that are stated, much less those that are not.

Furthermore, it can honestly be questioned whether the covenants of God himself with individual human beings are always and in every respect unconditional. Some of the blessings of even the Abrahamic covenant are conditional (Gen. 17:14), even though the covenant itself is not. For although God’s promises regarding seed, land, posterity, and so on will be fulfilled to the descendants of Abraham corporately considered, the experiencing of any of these blessings by individual descendants of Abraham is conditioned upon their being circumcised of heart—an Israelite indeed (Rom. 3). Additionally, the marriage-divorce “metaphor” in the Old Testament is most often tied to the Mosaic covenant rather than to the Abrahamic. With regard to the conditional nature of that covenant, consider Deuteronomy 27-30. If the people then, or in future generations, disregard the unequal treaty of Sinai, cursings will come upon them. Jeremiah records the historical facts of the visitation of these curses, and notes:

“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their father in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord (31:32 f)

Sinai was a “bilateral,” or conditional, covenant. Its form is that of the Suzerainty treaty, a Hittite treaty between unequal parties. Analogies between God and marriage in the Old Testament seem most directly to relate to the Mosaic, rather than the Abrahamic Covenants. So too, the Davidic covenant was unconditional, but that did not mean that the positive promises to him always obtain to his descendents.

It is simply wrong-headed to understand the human covenant of marriage to be as unilateral as the Abrahamic covenant. Moreover, it is both hasty and dangerous to argue from the fact that God has chosen unilaterally to make his relationship to Israel or the Church permanent to the requirement that spouses must unilaterally remain in legal bonds of marriage to each other.

If marriage is a covenant, and if covenants involve conditions, exactly what are the conditions? Are they the same for both men and women or do they differ? Where does the Bible talk about all this? These are a few of the questions that this discussion engenders. Answering them is not an easy task. It is also a controversial project—much more so than I once imagined.

Simply put, the Bible warns a person against the breaking of the conditions when, in the seventh commandment, it says, ‘You shall not commit adultery” (Exod. 20:14). Though at first one might be inclined to think of this word only in sexual terms, the Deuteronomic comment on this command makes it clear that far more than sexual purity is at stake.⁶³ In a section spanning from 22:1 to 23:14, we find that the major value behind the command is “integrity” of relationships. Different types of relationships are addressed: social (22:1-14), sexual (22:5), natural (22:6-7), architectural (22:8), agricultural (22:9-10), customary (22:11-12), marital (22:13-29), lineal (22:30-23:8), hygienic (23:9-13). Looking at this list, it is evident that integrity in general and not merely sexual integrity is understood by Moses as entailed by the warning against “adultery.” Deuteronomy says positively what Exodus put negatively. Deuteronomy says that the life of the Israelite is to be lived in purity and integrity. Exodus warns us not to adulterate that integrity.⁶⁴

The Essential Commitments in the Covenant

Looking specifically at the section on marriage, we may note that responsibility is dealt with in regard to both the woman and the man. The admonition to each is interwoven with that of the other. The woman is enjoined to keep herself pure from any willful sexual relations with men other than her pledged one (cf. Deut. 22:20, 22-25).⁶⁵ For his part, the man is required not to ruin the reputation of a woman of Israel (22:19, 24-29). I will sum these up under the following heads: the man is to protect and provide for the woman; the woman is to be monogamous. But we are already a bit ahead of ourselves; let us turn back now to Exodus and see these same responsibilities as they appear in the first giving of the Law.

The Man’s Responsibilities:

Provision for the Wife’s Bodily Needs

He may not reduce her food, clothing,
or conjugal rights. (Exodus 21:10)

After the statement of the general obligation not to commit adultery, the Law picks up in the following chapter the theme of covenantal relations. The implications of Exodus 21 to our discussion are not to be underestimated. Unfortunately the chapter is seldom, if ever, brought into the discussion of marriage, much less of divorce, the reason being that the one-flesh relationship under discussion that chapter is one involving concubines.

There are very good reasons for breaking with the traditional avoidance of Exodus 21 in discussions of marriage. First, a concubine is nearly a wife. Though a slave, she did have an ongoing “one-flesh” relationship with her master. She bore him children, and they were considered his (remember that most of the sons of Jacob were born to him by his wives’ servant girls). Exodus 21 makes it clear that the concubine had been bought by a price, which must have functioned similarly to the bride price of a full wife (v. 7). Second, though she was a concubine, therefore a slave, slavery in Israel was unlike that in surrounding lands. Victims of chattel slavery were protected from being sent back to their masters if they escaped (Deut. 23:15), but the permanent servant girl was to be treated like a daughter (Exod. 21:9).⁶⁶ Third, though the term wife is added in the English text in 21:10, it would seem that the translators have been well advised to interpret it this way (rather than simply “another maidservant”) insofar as the verse at hand closely approximates Deuteronomy 21:15, which deals with a similar subject, namely, the disinheriting of the children of an unloved woman/wife. The Deuteronomy text prohibits an attack upon an unloved wife by disinheriting her children; the earlier Exodus passage prohibits a man from refusing to give a wife the opportunity to have children. The second passage amends the first at a crucial point. What good would it do to prohibit a man from disinheriting his wife’s children if he could simply refuse to give the unloved woman children (through whom she gained inheritance from him) in the first place? The laws function together, and both wives and concubines are, in all likelihood, to be included in both.⁶⁷

Fourth, and more important, since the Scripture elsewhere does not discuss similar rights of a full wife, it may be presumed that this text is designed, in principle, to set forth the rights of all women under covenant who have a one-flesh relationship with a man.⁶⁸ Philosophically, this sort of reasoning is called an a fortiori argument; that is, it argues from the lesser to the greater: if God cares this much for a one-flesh partner of a lesser status (i.e., a concubine), then He cares at least as much for a full wife (i.e., a companion). If the slave has certain rights, it is unreasonable to assume that the free woman has fewer.⁶⁹ That would suggest that a partner in a covenant of equality would deserve less consideration than a partner in a covenant of inequality. Certainly God felt no obligation to provide for the covenant partner (Israel) when that partner had failed to live up to its side of the covenant! The very point of the “cursing” section bears that out. Any who would suggest that full partnership implies less privilege bears a heavy burden of proof!

The a fortiori argument assumes new importance when we consider that God is very concerned with the reputation of the full wife. In Numbers 5 and Deuteronomy 23, there are passages that assess great fines against a man who would tarnish his wife’s reputation. Would it seem likely that God would care so much for the woman’s reputation and care nothing for her body? A smear upon her reputation brought a hundred-month fine and the prohibition of divorce. Could it be argued that God does not care if the bearer of that reputation is battered and beaten to death? That is not likely. Is it improbable that God intends the concubine passages to be used to derive principles for the judges to apply to the case of abused covenant partners who were equals to the males? The principle of the Exodus passage is that a legal sexual partner has certain inalienable rights. A wife is such a partner as well as a concubine. In short, marriage being essentially a covenantal (not a mystical) relation—a covenant of equals—absolutely nothing would imply the lack of privileges granted a partner in a covenant of unequals. The wife has her rights.

What are those rights, or, if I may put it backwards, what are the obligations of the man? Exodus reveals four. Three are found in 21:10, and the last is enumerated in verses 26 and 27. The first three obligations are prefaced by the phrase “he may not reduce.” The idea here is that the master may not cut back on the provisions stated in the contract made with the girl’s father (cf. v. 7). Obviously, that contract stipulated a certain amount of each of the items that follow. But before we look at them in particular, note that in the case of a slave contract, the concubine’s father is obviously in a poor bargaining position. In all likelihood he would only have been able to arrange for a minimal amount of provisions for his daughter. Had he been in a better position, he doubtless would not have sold her in the first place, for, rather than “another mouth to feed,” such a girl would usually have been a helpful part of his work force. On the other hand, if the master had really liked the girl, and considered her family equals to his own, he would have taken her as a full wife, not put upon her the status of a slave. Given these considerations, it is likely that, as a rule, the sort of promises made would entail minimal support; that is why reduction of the provisions is prohibited.

Just how serious the issue is can quickly be seen by considering the nature of the provisions in question: food, clothing, and sex. The first two are most readily understood. If the girl was getting minimal food, reducing the amount would be life-threatening. She could starve. If she were ill clothed, her body could succumb to the elements. She needed minimal shelter. But the third obligation, sex—“conjugal rights”—is not so clear.⁷⁰ Why is sex an issue? Answer: the future security of the concubine depended upon her children. She received no inheritance from her master aside from what he was required to give to his children by her (cf. Deut. 21:15-17). If he died before she did, as husbands most often do, she could not count upon his extended family to care for her in her old age (when she would no longer be desired as a concubine). Her hope was in her children. Any man who would so attack that future security of the concubine by denying her the chance to have children was to be considered a scoundrel indeed. The Onan story (Gen. 38), though dealing with a levirate situation (marriage of a widow to her deceased husband’s brother) and relating to a “full wife,” nonetheless makes this clear in the Old Testament, and Paul’s harsh words regarding the neglect of one’s family (1 Tim. 5:8) show that God has not changed his mind in the matter!

Since a slave was an unequal partner, it stands to reason that a husband was expected to provide far better for his full wife. The slave could expect the minimum. The wife could expect better. The translator of the NET Bible argues in his note at that point that the word for food means “flesh”, which speaks not of minimum, but of food eaten by family members. This would imply even greater rights for a full wife.

Consideration must be given here to the arguments by Walter Kaiser that the third provision in the list should be “ointments” rather than “marital rights.”⁷¹ Noting that the Hebrew word in question is a hapax legomenon (once-spoken word), Kaiser questions the propriety of following the Septuagint (the Old Testament translated into Greek around 200 BC), whence arises “marital rights,” when similar, threefold lists of essentials from Sumer and Akkad (more contemporaneous societies) end with “ointments.”⁷²

I do not believe that a close examination of the facts surrounding the choice in question does not, however, favor Kaiser’s conclusion. First, there is no assurance that because the similar lists are threefold and contain two common elements the third element is the same. The case would be stronger, of course, if the Exodus list was itself from Sumer/Akkad. Second, I believe that it is still preferable to follow the “authorized” translation of the Hebrew Scriptures by those familiar with the tradition than one that is based on inferences drawn from similarities.

Kaiser does admit in a footnote that those arguing for “marital rights” do have two plausible supports for their alternative. The first is a linguistic point. The Hebrew term, though a hapax, is very similar to a word translated “to humble by ravishing [in illicit intercourse].” The second point is a cross-reference to 1 Corinthians 7:3, where Paul admonishes the husband to show his spouse “due benevolence,” which, in the context, certainly means to “grant sexual intercourse.”

Why Kaiser rejects these supports virtually out of hand is puzzling. Though it is clear that the term cannot mean “humble by ravishing,” or “rape,” we must remember that the term in Exodus is slightly different. Perhaps the difference involves mitigation of the implications of humbling by force? In any case, the more evident linguistic elements do seem tied to sex rather than ointments. Second, though the cross-reference to Paul is less weighty, it does show that an Old Testament scholar of the early Church did see it as an obligation for the man to grant his wife sexual relations.

Given these points, it seems far less risky to follow the traditional translation of the hapax than Kaiser implies. For my part, I will presume that the traditional translation is preferred until better argument can be found than mere similarity to other ancient texts. (See also argument given in Appendix B.)

Presence

A corollary to the responsibility of provision is presence. If the husband is responsible to provide nourishment and security—including sexual intercourse—his continuing presence would be required. This does not mean that he cannot be away from the home for valid reasons, but it does mean that he cannot willfully desert his wife and remain innocent of failing to provide. The implications of this provision are also important to the question of divorce. If a husband’s divorce of his wife is a legal desertion, then it would be nothing less than a form of breach of the requirement to provide for his wife.

Prohibition of His Abuse of Her Body

If a man strikes the eye… and destroys it…
(Exodus 21:26)

The final requirement of Exodus 21 is consistent with the first three. If the male one-flesh partner was prohibited from passively attacking the well-being of his covenant partner, we may reasonably conclude that more physical aggression on his part would be a more grievous insult to the relationship. If we think so, we are not disappointed by the later verses of the chapter (vs. 26):

And if a man strikes the eye of his male or female slave, and destroys it, he shall let him go free on account of his eye And if he knocks out a tooth of his male or female slave, he shall let him go free on account of his tooth. (Emphasis added.)

Note that the abuse in question is not a simple slap or a raised voice, but a serious attack. Hebrew scholars suggest that the eye-tooth reference may be a merism, that is, a term-set that goes from the greatest to the least. The implication of a merism at this location in the text would be that if the contract partner sustains any lasting physical damage, the covenant has been broken.⁷³ Note, too, that the slave is a

person under covenant or contract. Remember also that a concubine is identified in the previous passage as a slave and certainly would have been protected by this passage. Finally, if we employ the same line of a fortiori reasoning that we did earlier, we see that the rights of a wife will at least equal those of a slave woman. In fact, logic implies that if a slave may not be beaten seriously, a full wife may not be beaten at all. The cord is tied: the man may not abuse his covenant partner. Neither passive nor active abuse of a wife would be tolerated by the law.

Protection of the Wife’s Reputation

“…because he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel”
(Deuteronomy 22:1-9)

To these requirements of physical protection we are now prepared to add comments about the reputation of the wife and the husband’s responsibility no to defame her. Two passages are pertinent; first is Numbers 5. This is the so-called “law of jealousy” (v. 29), where a man suspects that his wife has been unfaithful to him, but he seems to have insufficient evidence for a normal adultery trial. The text offers the option of securing final judgment from the Lord. The man takes his wife before the priest (the issue here is revelatory evidence), and the woman is put through a ritual. God speaks through the effects of the ritual to proclaim the guilt or innocence of the woman. There is nothing magical about the ritual; it is simply designed to be a means of revelation, similar to throwing die.

The public nature of the process is important. After all, the husband has made a public statement about his wife’s loyalty and purity. It is, then, only fitting that the truth be a matter of public record, derived through a priest—not through a politician—that it be done by the hand of the omniscient God, not by the word of humans who err.

The wording of the results of the test is our primary concern. It states that, if she is guilty, “the man shall be free from guilt.” The man in question is not the man who has committed adultery with the woman, but, rather, her husband; he shall not be guilty of slander. Obviously, if she is not guilty, the husband is. While the text of Numbers does not go into further detail regarding the nature of his guilt or it’s penalty, it may be assumed that he is guilty of slander and that his penalty would be determined by the judges. We may only speculate as to the social penalties that his neighbors and his wife’s family might assess!

A second passage, Deuteronomy 22:13-21, offers significant clarification to the first. In this “second giving” of the Law, a similar challenge to the integrity of the wife is discussed. This time it regards a new bride, rather than a wife of long standing. In Deuteronomy, the groom claims that his wife has had premarital relations, is guilty of “shameful deeds” v. 17). Again, the matter of evidence is considered. This time the wedding-night sheets, in the possession of the bride’s father for safe custody, stained with the consummative blood, is considered sufficient proof of her purity. And if the proof could not be produced, the girl was judged to be a harlot and was dealt with as such (vv. 20 f.). If she were guiltless, the slandering groom was treated in a way appropriate to his guilt. The specifics of this punishment will be discussed in the next chapter, but here I wish to note the nature of his guilt: “he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel” (v. 19). This makes it clear that the husband had a legal obligation to do nothing that would ruin the reputation of his wife, at least as regarded questions of her loyalty to the canons of their marital covenant.

New Testament Statements

The New Testament reaffirms these responsibilities of the husband. In Ephesians 5, the husband is admonished to “love” his wife. This admonition to responsible, self-sacrificing regard for her in her status as a wife is defined further as nourishing and cherishing her (v. 20). If anything, there is a bit of emotional involvement implied in the latter term (thalpo)—a certain tenderness—that was not legally binding upon the husband in the Old Testament. We shall have more to say about these “extra legal” responsibilities as they relate to the ending of the covenant.

The Woman’s Responsibilities:

Sexual Fidelity to Her Husband

“If no man has lain with you..”.
(Numbers 5:19)

The major condition of the covenant for the woman was sexual fidelity. She was required to have no other sex partner than the man to whom she was pledged. Passages in the Law that defined sexual adultery made this very clear. Consider first Leviticus 18:20:

You shall not have intercourse with your neighbor’s wife, to be defiled with her.

This is supported by the penalty clause in Leviticus 20:10:

If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress …

In the “second giving” of the Law, the formula does not change:

If a man is found lying with a married woman … (Deut. 22:22)

If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her…he has violated his neighbor’s wife. (Deut 22:23 f.)

In each case, the woman is identified as pledged to another man. Her marriage might have been consummated or might still be in the betrothal stage, but in either case, for her to join herself physically to another man constituted “adultery.”

This betrothal aspect of this analysis bears out a conclusion of Chapter 1; that is, the consummation of marriage by intercourse did not constitute the most important element of the marriage relationship or of the establishing of the marriage itself. More important than the consummation was the betrothal. This fact is easier to understand when you recall that, in Hebrew marriages, the only vows that were ever said, the only agreement that was ever made, was made at the beginning of the initial betrothal. For them, the betrothal was not merely a sentimental statement of intention, as it often is in our society, but the very binding of the parties together by covenant. From that moment onward, the woman was considered the man’s wife (cf. Deut. 22:24).⁷⁴ The heart of the covenant was not the one-flesh joining, but the contractual commitment.⁷⁵

But though that marriage is not essentially sexual, it is to be remembered that the wife had the right to sexual relations with her husband (Exod. 21:10). She had the right to sex in order to grant her the possibility of offspring who could provide her future security. Sex was a right of marriage (“conjugal rights”), not an essential element in its establishment. Without the vows, no marriage exists. Without sexuality, the marriage has not been consummated. The consummation is similar to, but not the same thing as, a man taking possession of property; he owns it before he takes it, but taking it makes the transaction final.

Deuteronomy 22:13 ff. presents us with a law that required the bride, when taken, to be as pure as she presented herself to be when first covenanted. For her to claim to be a virgin but to have had previous sexual relations was a breach of covenant. Perhaps the thought here is that the girl had those relations during the betrothal period, but no great effort is taken to determine the exact timing. She is simply said to have “played the harlot in her father’s house” (22:21). This shows the seriousness with which the Law looked upon the purity of the bride.

An important distinction to make at this point is that the woman’s responsibility with regard to marriage is put in the negative, whereas the man’s is put in the positive. He must grant to her the act of sexual intercourse. She, on the other hand, was required only to refrain from having sex with anyone else. She was not required to have sex with him. Of course if she did not, he might take another wife if he could afford one. It was a “check and balance system”.

Prohibition of Her Abuse of His Body

Husband abuse of a physical sort is not directly mentioned in the Law. But it is indirectly. It is an implication of the same passages cited to prove that a woman’s husband may not abuse her (Exod. 21:26 f.). If slaves could be free of their master if beaten, what must we conclude of a master beaten by his servant? The Law might have justified death for the slave in those cases (cf. Exod. 21:15 for how the striking of authorities was treated), but we can be satisfied with no less a conclusion than that such abuse would have ended the master’s responsibility to provide for the dependent servant. The implications for this in marriage are obvious.

Presence

Though it is rather easy to see the need for the husband to remain available for the wife—especially regarding sexual obligations, it is harder to see an essential requirement for the wife to remain in the home. But such is the implication of the Law. Ending a contractual covenant was a matter of ransom, or transfer of ownership. And a ransom was not always allowed in the Law. Thus, a woman slave was not allowed to leave the master’s house, as the male slave was (cf. Exod. 21:1 ff.).⁷⁶ In other cases ransom or redemption was allowed. In the case of a girl rejected as a bed-partner a process of redemption was required (Exod. 21:8). The rejected war bride of Deuteronomy 21 even needs to have an ordinance to permit her to “go out.” And the divorced woman of Deuteronomy 24 needs the writ. All of these passages, and others, speak of the fact that a woman may not simply walk away from her husband. If she did, that would doubtless have been seen as a statement that she was repudiating her covenantal agreements.

New Testament Additions

The New Testament, of course, goes beyond the legal requirements for the woman by adding responsibilities for her to “submit” (Eph. 5:22/1 Pet. 3:1 ff.) to her husband. The term for this means to “order yourself under” someone else. This means that the woman chooses to place herself under the hierarchical control of her husband, in the same way volunteer soldiers choose to place themselves under the general. The text goes on to tell the wife to obey (1 Pet. 3:1) and reverence (Eph. 5:33) her husband.⁷⁷

The New Testament also accommodates the increasingly exclusive monogamy of its readers. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul admonishes the wife to give her body to her husband. As we noted above, this was not required legally of the wife under the Law: if the woman withheld her body from her husband, he could simply take another wife or concubine. But when only one marriage covenant was culturally permitted, the apostle needed to “require” reciprocal giving of the body to the spouse to provide a moral alternative to fornication.⁷⁸ If we wonder why Paul does this rather than speak out in favor of the older concession of polygamy, my response is that Paul avoided being a “controversialist”. He does not directly attack slavery, though what he required of Philemon—to treat his slave Onesimus like a Christian brother—completely undercut that unjust institution.

The mention of these apostolic “admonitions” regarding both spouses gives rise to another question: since certain conditions or vows of the marriage covenant go beyond the essentials, what is the status of those conditions that might be added to the “essentials” by apostles or by the marriage partners themselves? What if the man should vow to be monogamous or the woman vow to obey? Are such “unnecessary” conditions valid? If so, are they the sorts of conditions that, if broken, damage the covenant as much as a breach of the “canons” or essential vows of covenant would?

First, let it be said that if an apostle adds something to the essentials, we may feel confidence in including those elements in present-day vows.⁷⁹ But if we have no inspired source for the additions, only the well-intentioned ideas of the couple themselves, we are justified in suggesting caution. Such additions could be dangerous. If God had thought it wise to include other conditions, he would surely have done so himself. He is omniscient. Where he has been silent, there must be reasons. Immediately, some will retort that the Bible itself makes some noteworthy additions, such as that requiring the woman to obey her husband (e.g., Eph. 5:22) or the husband to love his wife (Eph. 5:25).

Without trying in any way to detract from the important nature of these “additions” to the Old Testament “canons of covenant,” it is a point worth pondering that such items should be understood as being similar to apostolic admonitions, binding as the words of the master to the disciple but having no intended legal status. If this is the case, then to have broken them would not be to have broken the covenant. But, of course, this fact is somewhat irrelevant when such additions are commonly added to the canons when the vows are publicly stated. It is one thing if an apostle admonishes a couple to do something, it is another if the couple has made the admonitions a public troth.

Moreover, when we consider the extent to which the canons can be amended, this question becomes quite thorny. Some men have vowed to “obey” their wives. Some couples have been encouraged to vow to each other that they will never use divorce as a means of settling marital problems. What is the status of such vows? If the canons are God’s minimum, the rest are human conditions. But, as Paul notes, human conditions once ratified are not to be changed or set aside (Gal. 3:15). Two alternatives present themselves: First, the additions are of equal status with the canons. On this interpretation, if when the canons are broken the covenant is understood as morally ending, the same would obtain if any other vow were broken. Thus, if the husband did not “cherish” his wife, or if she did not obey a certain command, the marriage would be morally over, just as if she had intercourse with another man.

A second way of seeing things would be to judge such additions as not equal to the canons. On this interpretation, if the wife does not obey her husband, she has offended the covenant, but not in a manner that would morally end the marriage. And if the discipline for breaking a canon of covenant be divorce, the discipline for breaking an addition would not be divorce but something less. Though this second interpretation seems the more reasonable, remember that the husband’s vow of monogamy fits into this category as well. This means that if he is unchaste, his wife may not divorce him, though he may divorce her for that same reason! Although this may not seem to be a totally happy interpretation, it is still likely that the second interpretation is preferable to the first, insofar as the first would seem to significantly change the canonical status of the essentials by making them equal to nonessentials.⁸⁰

Most difficult of all is the addition of a vow not to divorce. Such a vow is either unnecessary or improper. If it is saying only that the two never intend to end their covenant by divorce, then it is unnecessary-in the sense that all marriage covenants imply intended permanence. To say “for better or for worse” is to say the same thing. Clearly, the Bible does not support sundering a marriage by divorce. But what if unfaithfulness to the vows occurs during the marriage? Does divorce end the marriage in that case? It may end it legally, but it was the unfaithfulness that ended the moral obligation and sundered the organic union. Divorce then simply states publicly what has happened privately. Divorce then may be a divinely prescribed disciplinary action. If a vow not to divorce be interpreted as prohibiting divorce in such cases, then it is contrary to God’s word. Shortly we will see how this vow is contrary to biblical teaching, insofar as it potentially inhibits the disciplinary action proscribed by Scripture and is contrary to the example of discipline set forth by God’s action against his “bride,” Israel.

Assuming for the moment that this is true, what then? Is a vow not to divorce invalid ab initio, or is it to be honored like the unfortunate vow Joshua made with Gibeon (a vow that should not have been made but, once made, should be kept)? One cannot be dogmatic here, but the latter does not seem likely. In the case of Gibeon, Joshua had been given a rule that was clearly understood but was applied wrongly. Those who vow not to divorce clearly do not understand the biblical mandate.

Reciprocity of Commitment

As a footnote to the study of responsibility in marriage, we may consider the question of reciprocity of the partners’ responsibilities. Does the woman have an obligation to provide for her husband or, at least, to not defame him? Does he have the right to have relations with another woman? I believe that only two of the responsibilities are reciprocal: presence and no physical abuse. I do not find sufficient biblical warrant for reciprocity on the other matters. The most questionable aspect of this conclusion relates to matters of the husband’s sexual fidelity. Readers interested in further argument regarding this matter should read the previous footnote above and Appendix B.

The Results of Covenant Keeping or Breaking

The Blessings of Keeping Covenant

The third element in a covenant is results. By this is meant the results of keeping or breaking the vows or conditions. In the next chapter we will consider the results of not keeping the vows. At this point we will consider the results of keeping them. Specifically, what are the blessings of keeping one’s marriage covenant? The first blessing of marriage is “ready” fulfillment. We are reminded that God created the woman expressly for the purpose of ending Adam’s loneliness. By himself, he had no way to express himself to a peer. Though he communed with God, many of his social skills were dormant. In addition, many of his psychological needs could only be fulfilled by receiving what the woman’s personality could supply. The beauty of marriage is that the marriage partner is “ready at hand.” Each does not have to spend anxious moments wondering if there is someone “out there” for them. Even when friends are numerous, marriage provides the potential for the greatest quantity and quality of “time together.”

Along with this social and psychological fulfillment is physical fulfillment. In contrast with such man as take their pleasure from a woman who is “common property,” is the married man, who may enjoy the body of his own wife, without the worry of whether she will be too busy with others to be available to him. If a couple has taken care to cultivate an affectionate-love relationship, they may physically love unless their partner is unable to provide for them. If that is based on responsible-love, it will involve respect and not selfish lust. The bliss of sexual love is expressed in the Scriptures in the Song of Solomon.

As we have noted, this blessing is meant to be limited to marital relations. Premarital sex was considered fornication, and extramarital sex was considered adultery (unless an act of rape). Since fornication and adultery are sins, we can readily see that pleasure in the sexual act performed under those circumstances will bring no lasting joy, but only judgment, perhaps by the conscience (shame & guilt), but surely someday by God. Guilt-free sexual pleasure is a blessing of marriage.⁸¹

It should be mentioned as well that sexual expression aside from the intention to bear children is blessed. As Geoffrey Bromiley has pointed out, marriage in Genesis is complete without children.⁸² Nonetheless, children constitute the third blessing of marriage. Since with the Fall came death, human beings can experience the fulfillment of many temporal goals only by the extension of their own life in those of their children. Even in this life, the elderly often find that they need the support of their grown children. Thus, the Bible speaks accurately when it says,

Children are a gift from of the Lord;
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.
(Psalm 127:3-5a)

Since children are the product of sexual union, and since such union should only be in marriage, it may be said that children are a blessing of marriage. Until modern times a child born outside of marriage was considered an indictment against the biological parents. Consider the implications of the slur against Jesus in John 8:41.

Finally, if it can be said that children help their parents achieve temporal goals, it is sure that the same point can be made about each spouse with regard to the other. Genesis 2 tells us that God made the woman to be a helper (2:18) for the man. As we have already had occasion to mention, the idea here is not of a servant but of one called to be alongside another-a partner. Without negating the role of the man as head, it may be said that the terminology here implies that they will do things as a corporate venture. That would include decision making. Though the man may be the one responsible for the ultimate decision, and though God may have gifted the male to do the sort of directive thinking required in leading a social unit, for him to fail to take advantage of the wisdom of his wife is surely folly. She adds a dimension to decision making that a man often cannot supply, a certain wholistic sensitivity, without which the decision is often cold and unloving.⁸³

All these blessings make marriage a very desirable institution, and it is little wonder that most people throughout history have taken advantage of the union. But not all who have done so have realized the blessings. For many, marriage seems like a trap. Consider the following verses, undoubtedly spoken from experience:

It is better to live in a corner of a roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman. (Prov. 21:9)

He who troubles his own house will inherit wind. (Prov. 11:29a)

Fortunately, the failure to find joy in marriage has not led most people to abandon marriage, to seek to obtain its joys by affairs outside of the marriage bond, or to strike out viciously against the marriage partner. Many have realized that it is far better to attempt to work out their problems honorably than to set themselves against the Witness (i.e., God) of their marriage vows. In brief, keeping the marriage vows is what enables the partners to experience the blessings of a good married life—in Genesis 1 and 2, personal fulfillment and a lack of anxiety. It enables the couple to do the work that God has set before each. Of course, the couple’s happiness is not assured simply because they fulfill the minimum conditions set forth. A providing husband and a faithful wife might still hamper each other in attaining personal fulfillment. Love and happiness are, however, impossible when the vows are not fulfilled. One can only say that friendship and mutual fulfillment are possible when these conditions are met. Romantic love is not a sufficient basis for fulfillment where the basic conditions are ignored or broken.

In John 21, Jesus distinguishes between responsible-love (agape) and affection-love (phileo). The former respects its object because of the status of that object—whether or not it is returned. Masters should have it for slaves; slaves for masters. The latter is a reciprocal affection such as the between friends or even lovers. In the upper room, Jesus told His disciples that He would, from then on consider them friends, and not just slaves. But the experience of that friendship-love depended on their respecting Him. When Peter denied Christ, his friendship-love was not based upon responsible-love. That is why Jesus had to bring the lack to his attention beside the sea. Peter holds fast to phileo love. Jesus twice presses him for a confession of agape love. But even when Jesus asks him if he is truly His friend, he continues to stress that all this means that Peter must be responsible by feeding Christ’s sheep/lambs.

Some doubt this interpretation of agape love because to make it respect due to the status of the loved seems to place it in opposition to the fact that God loves mankind with agape love. What sort of responsibility is due sinful man by a Holy and Infinite God? The answer is that the love that is due man (i.e., the sending of God’s only Son to die for man’s sin) is based upon the sovereign decision of God to create man in His own image and likeness. No other reason.

Affection without responsibility is blind. Responsibility without affection is empty. The highest kind of love in marriage is affection based on responsibility; phileo based on agape.

The Sanctions Against Covenant Breaking

The final element of a covenant is security. This refers to the agency that stood behind the vows to make sure that they were kept. The Bible clearly teaches that God himself is the security of all valid marriages. Proverbs 2:17 informs us that to commit adultery is not only to offend the human partner but also to break covenant with God. This is not to say that the covenant of marriage is a divine covenant in itself, as if the people of old made the marriage covenant with him, but rather that the human covenant was insured by God, who was its witness. God was the guarantor, which is to say that He will hold the partners accountable for the breach of their vows. This should strike fear in the heart of any thoughtful and believing person; the very God who was powerful enough to create the whole universe will punish lapses. It is doubtful that most who commit adultery think of this while they are sundering their marriages by their sin. Practical atheists abound at such times!⁸⁴

On the other hand, it is possible to misunderstand this whole issue of security and think that the covenant itself is “divine.” When the Scripture speaks of the covenant as being a covenant with God that is simply another way of referring to God’s being a witness of the human covenant. In biblical times, most, if not all, public covenants were secured by calling upon God (or the gods) as witness of the sincerity of the covenanters. One might aptly speak of all covenants as being “cultic,” or religious. The religious nature of covenant is revealed by the action involved in covenant making. For example, in Genesis 15:18, the idiom to cut is used. The idea here is that a sacrifice accompanied the making of the covenant. The animals are cut. This act calls upon God to observe the agreement. A passage in Malachi makes this clear: ‘The Lord has been a witness between you and your wife” (2:14). It is in that regard that the covenant may be said to be a covenant “with your God” (Prov. 2:17). Marriage is a human covenant, with divine sanction.

The New Testament also speaks of such matters. Paul says, “Brethren, I speak in terms of human relations: even though [you may be speaking] of only a man’s covenant, yet when it has been ratified, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it” (Gal. 3:15). Paul is drawing distinctions between human covenants and those made between God and human beings (i.e., the Abrahamic covenant). Human covenants regulate human relations. They are made between people; the vows are spoken by one person to another. Divine commands are spoken by God to humanity. Whatever part God may have in insuring the human covenant of marriage, marriage is still a human covenant.

This does not, of course, mean that God sanctions every marriage. In a subsequent chapter we will mention one very important kind of marriage that he does not sanction-, here, we need only enumerate unsanctioned “marriages”: incestuous (Lev. 18), homosexual (Lev. 18), and interfaith (where the believer willfully married the unbeliever in disobedience to God’s Law, Ezra 9, 10). Marriage is human and conditional.

Summary of the Essentials of the Covenant

Marriage is a conditional covenant, insured by God, wherein the husband promises to provide for the essential needs of the wife and to do nothing to seriously injure her body or stain her reputation, while the wife promises to be physically faithful to her husband and to do him no bodily harm.⁸⁵ Both pledge their presence.

The reader must be careful not to confuse the biblical idea of covenant with the prevailing laws of the nations. The prevailing laws may allow “marriages” not permitted by the biblical concept of the covenant of marriage. For example, the prevailing laws of Israel in the days of Herod Antipas permitted him to take his still-living brother’s wife. But John proclaimed that Herod’s marriage to Herodias was not lawful. John, of course, meant unlawful in terms of the biblical covenant. The same could be said of modern laws that might allow homosexual marriages. They may pass the bar of custom, but they fail at the bar of the God of the Bible.

Thus, we see three levels of relationship in marriage:

Level 1: The Legal Level
(The prevailing laws—contract)

Level 2: The Moral Level
(The biblical covenant obligations)

Level 3: The Organic Level
(The “one-flesh” union in marriage)

Throughout this book, our real concern is largely with the implications on Level 2 of the act of divorce, which takes place on Level 1. It is unbiblical activity on the Legal Level that must be brought into accord with the Biblical-Covenantal Level. Thus John tells Herod that he must put Herodias away, that is, divorce her, end the legal relationship. So, too, Ezra insists that the immoral marriages with the women of the land be ended (see chap. 4). The mere existence of level 1 does not mean that there exists a proper relationship on level 2.⁸⁶

We are not unconcerned with activity on Level 3—the level of intimacy. The existence of a Level-3 relationship may or may not entail a relationship on one of the other levels. Sometimes the existence of a relationship on Level 3 precedes one on the other levels and may or may not call for a relationship on one of those other levels to be established.

This chapter has focused upon the sorts of obligations of covenant (Level 2) that must be a part of the public agreement (Level 1) in order for the social contract to be considered biblically acceptable. Some of these obligations are reciprocal (i.e., presence, no physical abuse); some are not (i.e., provision, sexual monogamy). In any case, the continued moral obligation to fulfill one’s obligations is conditional upon the fulfillment of the spouse’s obligations. Marriage is a bilateral, not a unilateral, covenant. Understanding this, we are prepared to consider what the Law of Moses, which sets forth that covenantal relationship, had to say about the act of divorce, an action on Level 1 that speaks of a breach on Level 2. This will be the subject of the next chapter.

⁵³   A similar text is Prov. 2:17. However, closer inspection of that verse reveals that the companion of her youth, which the adulterous woman is leaving, may well be God Himself, and the covenant that she has forgotten is most likely the Mosaic Law. By committing adultery, she has not only deserted her husband, but also her God. By being unfaithful, she has broken the Law, which proscribed adultery.

⁵⁴   Heth/Wenham, following E. Neufeld’s study of marriage in the Old Testament (Ancient Hebrew Marriage Laws [London Longman’s, Green, 1944], p 89), distinguish four “essentials” of marriage (I) intention of the parties to unite, (2) ratification by the parents, (3) ratification before public witnesses, and (4) physical consummation Although 1 do not disagree about the particulars in this list, I do feel that these authors have missed significant “essentials” By ignoring the specifics of what the marriage partners pledge to each other, these authors leave their readers with the impression that marriage is some amorphous union, a covenant without terms. The net result of such explication may be one of two undesirable conclusions. First, it could be argued that since the only “essentials” are matters of intention and social agreement, one or both of the partners might simply “opt out” of the covenant a veritable “no-fault”. Or, on the other hand, with Heth/Wenham, one might choose to believe that such a union cannot be broken because there is nothing tangible to break, though something intangible and unbreakable remains.

Heth/Wenham further this confusion by attacking the idea that marriage is essentially sexual. By analyzing several Mosaic laws, they show that marriage is not essentially sexual. I agree, but find the conclusions, and perhaps the placement, of this analysis to be confusing. It is confusing because, first, Neufeld teaches that consummation is an essential of marriage, and they agreed with him They do not show how consummation is both an essential of marriage (# 4), yet nonessential when it comes to breach How is their reader to know that this consummation does not establish a sexual bond that is “broken by infidelity” On another level, their presentation is confusing because they do not reveal to their readers that though sexual relations do not make a marriage, sexual infidelity may well be a matter of essential covenantal promise that, when breached, does in fact dissolve moral responsibility of the innocent party to continue according to the agreements of covenant (Cf Jesus, p 104 ). It seems far less confusing to focus upon essential vows. This is what I attempt to do in this chapter.

⁵⁵   Although others think that it is derived from the Akkadian birtu, “a fetter,” which, in turn, is derivative of the word meaning “between”. For further information on these matters, consult TWOT, vol 1, pp 128-30.

⁵⁶   R Killenand & J Rea, “Covenant,” Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia, eds. Charles Pfeiffer. H Voss, and J. Rea (Chicago Moody, 1975), p 306.

⁵⁷   We shall return to this discussion in a later chapter, but the reader is encouraged to read the books by James Hurley, Man and Woman in Biblical Perspective: A Study in Role Relationships and Authority (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1981) and Susan Foh, Women and the Word of ‘God: A Response to Biblical Feminism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979).

⁵⁸   It is really better to translate the word “bride price” rather than “dowry,” as a dowry was given by the father of the bride to the bride as a present when she left the nuclear family, whereas a bride price was paid by the groom to the father of the bride. The former was managed for the bride by the groom, whereas the latter was the possession of the bride’s family. Some grooms mismanaged the dowry. Then again, some fathers, like Laban, mismanaged the bride price (Gen. 31:15)

⁵⁹   It is estimated that the price came to about ten months’ wages for the average Israelite. A man would have to be serious about his intentions to give such a sum.

⁶⁰   The text considers such relations between “consenting adults” seduction of the woman by the man.

⁶¹   This conclusion may be supported by an obscure passage in Deut 21. In vv. 10-14, we read of the case of a prisoner-of-war bride. The girl has no parents to speak for her, and the turn of subsequent events makes it clear that she wants out of the “forced” marriage. The text (which we will discuss again later) seems to be saying that this marriage may (perhaps “should”) be annulled on that basis—the woman has the right to determine to whom she will be united. I believe in view of these passages it is safe to affirm that the woman functioned as an equal partner in the making of the covenant.

⁶²   WBE, s.v. “Covenants,” p. 387.

⁶³   The reader is encouraged to read the highly instructive article in MAARAV 1/2 (1978-79): 105-58 by Steven Kaufman: “The Structure of the Deuteronomic Law.” I differ a bit with Kaufman on exactly where the division breaks occur but am convinced that, in general, his approach to the material is correct and crucial to the understanding of both Deuteronomy and the Ten Commandments. See Appendix J for a chart showing what I believe are the Biblical comments on the Ten Commandments.

⁶⁴   My former colleague at Moody, John Walton (now Old Testament Professor at Wheaton College), has made much of the distinction between vows (Heb.: nadaf) and oaths (Heb.: shaba). Vows were promises to God whereby a person pledged to give God something, either an object, a course of action, or a service. To make an oath was to bind oneself by unbreakable intention to do a certain action. TWOT (s.v. “Shaba,” vol. 11, p. 900) further distinguishes an oath from a covenant. “An oath in the OT is a solemn verbal statement of or pledge that is affirmed, while the covenant is the substance of an agreement itself.” Walton argues that in a marriage covenant, the person made a vow, an oath, and a covenant. The oath, he further argues, could not be broken, whereas the vow might be set aside. The implication, I suppose, is that, since an oath is involved, the man could not cease to fulfill his own oath-bound promise simply because his spouse had failed in keeping her oath.

While this may be true, the application of it to marriage is not clear. It may be asked if the marriage covenant involved an oath. I do not note a single biblical instance of such. The closest it comes would be the use of a couple of “oath” terms in Num. 5, where a suspected adulteress was expected to make an oath that she had not been unfaithful to her husband. But this is not the same thing as saying that she had originally made an oath to her husband that she would not be unfaithful. But even if marriage was covenanted with an oath, TWOT notes that others could “clear” (Heb.: naqd) or free a person from an oath. Abraham made such provision in his instructions to his servant when that servant sought a wife for Isaac (Gen. 24:8). According to Num. 30, fathers and husbands could negate the oaths of their daughters and wives. Even more significant is the fact that the spies made a conditional oath to Rahab at Jericho. They would ensure her safety, only if she stayed inside the doors of a house marked with a red rope.

I therefore contend that it is moot whether or not the basic idea of unalterable attestation in an oath affects the subject of marriage promises. It may be that no such absoluteness was involved in the marriage covenant, or (more likely) that circumstances such as the breach of oath by the spouse could have released the innocent party. In either case, it is going beyond the evidence to argue that the verbal bond in marriage is unalterable, and, therefore, I do not think we need concern ourselves unduly with these distinctions.

⁶⁵   It may be more proper to speak of the exclusion of all other sexual relations, rather than just with other men. The only other possibilities are with animals (proscribed in Lev. 18:23) or other women (proscribed by implication in Lev. 18:22 as clarified in Rom. 1:26 f.). Thus all porneia would be excluded.

⁶⁶   Even though a distinction was made between a concubine and a full wife—see my earlier discussion—the man’s responsibilities to the concubine still existed.

⁶⁷   Walter Kaiser denies that the provisions required in v. 10 are for a wife. Walter Kaiser, Toward Old Testament Ethics (Grand Rapids: Academic Books/Zondervan, 1983). See Appendix B for a detailed response to his position.

⁶⁸   The alternatives to this conclusion are repugnant: (1) God does not know about the needs of a full wife, (2) he does not care about the needs of a full wife, (3) he does not consider the full wife as of equal worth to the concubine (cf. Lev. 19:20 for a clear statement of the opposite valuing).

⁶⁹   Indeed, it is most reasonable to presume that the free woman will have more rights than the slave. We have already noted above the presence of a law that enjoined greater responsibility upon the lull wife. Why then presume that she has fewer rights when it came to the essentials of life? See also the recent work of David Instone-Brewer, What God has Joined, Christianity Today, Oct. 2007. He likewise argues that Jews in Jesus’ day knew of Ex. 21:10-11 as teaching that every wife deserved food, clothing, and love. Though the latter is a bit weak. John Piper objects, but Brewer responds well.

⁷⁰   Note that this provision is placed first in the Hebrew text.

⁷¹   Walter Kaiser, Toward Old Testament Ethics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), p. 185.

⁷²   It is interesting to note that elsewhere in his book Kaiser suggests that we follow the Septuagint, and even the reading of the Latin Vulgate, rather than the implications of the Hebrew (cf. p. 187).

⁷³   We should remember that the loss of an eye, or even a tooth, was much more serious in antiquity than it would be today. But it should not be our aim to culturally reduce the consequences of such a malicious physical attack. Such abuse is inexcusable.

⁷⁴   “Wife” is the proper translation here, even though, as noted earlier, the Hebrew word in question in could be translated “woman”. In this instance, to be a man’s woman was to be his, i.e., his wife.

⁷⁵   This is supported by the verses mentioned in the earlier discussion of how premarital sex led to a required, witnessed covenant, without which no marriage was considered to exist. Even in the case of a Adam and Eve, there was a Witness, God Himself. Subsequent to that, human witnesses would have been added. First the primal parents, then other humans. Marriages were social happenings.

⁷⁶   This did not mean that women slaves could not be married and carry on private lives in addition to their continued service.

⁷⁷   See chap 10.

⁷⁸   Cf. chap. 6.

⁷⁹   This presumes the apostle saw them as being trans-culturally relevant. If not, then we should be cautious even here!

⁸⁰   But I would add here that in ancient times straying was not the life-threatening action that it is in an age of STD’s and AIDS. Today, male infidelity becomes a threat to the life of the wife and probably would be justified as a breach of the canons of marriage, and therefore a divorceable offense.

⁸¹   This is not to say that some acts of sexuality in marriage may not be evil. It is possible to defile the marriage bed in thought or act with practices identified in Scripture to be evil. Cf. Heb. 13:4.

⁸²   Geoffrey Bromiley, God and Marriage (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans/T & T Clark, 1980), p. 4.

⁸³   For a deeper understanding of the differences between men and women, and how they complement each other, the reader is encouraged to read Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington’s The Female Woman (New York: Random, 1974).

⁸⁴   Some will say that my view of marriage is humanistic, since it seems at first to so emphasize the social aspects of the marriage agreement. Such criticism is unfounded. Not only do I recognize such Old Testament statements, but I find them parallel to the saying of Jesus that God “joins” the valid partners together. I take this statement to be simply another way of making the same point about God being the witness and security of the marriage covenant.

⁸⁵   To these “canons” of covenant one should add the fact, mentioned in the first chapter, that the couple commit themselves to each other on a permanent basis. This does not mean that this commitment to permanence cannot be broken, but that it should not. If one of the parties does break the vows (e.g., her sexual faithfulness), it would not be a breach of the vow-to-permanence for the offended party to divorce, for in that case, the adultery has already broken the moral bond of marriage and sundered the union.

⁸⁶   Later I will argue that the breach of the covenant (level 2) by one of the parties who have a legal relationship (level 1) releases the innocent party from moral obligation to continue to fulfill his or her obligations on level 2.

Introduction to the Prophetic Literature

It is not known to what degree the laws protecting the marriage vows were enforced. It is clear from the numerous passages in the Proverbs that speak of the adulteress or strange woman that the marriage vow was breached, and we may infer from the persistence of her presence that by the time of the United Monarchy execution for such an offense was not readily practiced. But these are all only inferences. As for the intentional failure of a man to provide for his wife, the text says virtually nothing, although it may surely be assumed that some of these offenses occurred as well.

What is clear is that by the time of Jesus, the death penalty was seldom if ever used for the offense of adultery. This is clear not only from a consideration of the Shammai-Hillel debate, wherein both schools presume that adultery would be grounds for divorce, not death, but from a consideration of the fact that Israel was a dependent nation and had to function under the laws of the overlords. Rome, at least according to the Julian Laws, did not recognize adultery as a capital crime, except under the most rare circumstances.¹⁴⁹ It may well be that something similar was the case under the prior overlords back to the times of the separate deportations of the Northern and Southern kingdoms.

Further light is shed on this matter by a consideration of several of the writings of the prophets. One of the most significant indications that adultery did not usually lead to execution but to divorce is found in Jeremiah 3. In this passage, dealing with an oracle given after the fall of the Northern Kingdom and before the fall of the Southern, God states that he has divorced the Northern Kingdom for their adulteries. He threatens the Southern Kingdom with the same treatment if they fail to be faithful. Such a discussion presumes that divorce is a customary treatment for unfaithfulness. But whether such language accommodates a prevailing practice, or whether it bespeaks a new dispensation of divine law is not clear. Usually, the former is assumed by commentators. (And this is my conclusion as well.)

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. In this chapter we will seek to uncover the two major marriage/divorce themes of the prophets. The first of these is the idea of divorce as a discipline for the sin of adultery; the second is the idea of groundless divorce as the sin of adultery.

The Discipline of Divorce

Divorce as a Step to Restoration from Adultery

(Hosea 1 and 2)

The Prophetic Background

As noted earlier, at some point prior to the deportation of the Southern Kingdom, execution for adultery was at least partially displaced by divorce.¹⁵⁰ This fact plays into a very interesting analogy (or figure) found in the prophetic literature of how God’s relation to Israel is like a man’s relationship to his adulterous wife. God’s treatment of adulterous Israel is similar to how a man treated his unfaithful wife: divorce. Let us look first at the marital analogy, then consider the disciplinary aspect of the analogy. Both elements are necessarily present in the two major passages we will consider: Hosea 1 and 2 and Ezra 9 and 10.

The presentation of Israel as the betrothed or bride of Yahweh does not arise until the times of apostasy just prior to the deportation of the Northern Kingdom.¹⁵¹ Nonetheless, in reading the prophetic writings, we are clearly made aware that God has understood his relationship to Israel in those terms. In Jeremiah, for example, we read:

“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord (Jer. 31:32).¹⁵²

It is easy to see why the parallel should be drawn. For not only is marriage the prototypical covenant (hence its clear connotation in the form of the seventh commandment, which protected valid covenants) but also Israel’s legal responsibility to God is put in similar terms. Consider, for example, these verses found in Leviticus 18:

And you shall not have intercourse with your neighbor’s wife, to be defiled with her (18:20).

Do not defile yourselves by any of these things (18:23).

The idea here is that for Israel to have practiced any of the abominations of the gentile nations would be for them to have dirtied themselves in a way similar to how a wife is defiled by an adulterous relation with a man other than her husband.

Even more striking is the Deuteronomical Law treatment of the first commandment. In Deuteronomy 7, we read of the possible social interrelation of Israel to the Canaanites:¹⁵³

You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods (7:2 f).

Echoing this, Joshua says:

But you are to cling to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day [a day of reaffirmation of the people to the Mosaic legislation] … So take diligent heed to yourselves to love the Lord your God. For if you ever go back and cling to the rest of these nations, these which remain among you, and intermarry with them, so that you associate with them and they with you, know with certainty that the Lord your God will not continue to drive these nations out from before you [Josh, 23:8,11 ff.].

The word cling here is the very term used in Genesis 2:24 of a man cleaving to his wife. When Israel is told to cleave to God and not to cleave to others, it is not a far jump to the marital metaphor of the prophets. This is especially true when the method of infidelity mentioned is “intermarriage” with the peoples of the land.¹⁵⁴

Sadly, Israel did not keep the vows to God. The first breach had already occurred, and that involving culpable ignorance. Back in Joshua 9, the story is told of how the Israelites foolishly made a covenant with the Gibeonites, who had deceived them into believing that they were from afar, peoples with whom Israel was allowed to make a covenant. Because of the culpability that Israel bore in not clarifying the exact origin of the Gibeonites, God made the Israelites keep the covenant to them. And, later, in the days of Saul, when the covenant was not kept with the Gibeonites, God judged Israel for being unfaithful.¹⁵⁵ But the later infidelity was intentional. The chronicler (perhaps Ezra) writes:

But they acted treacherously against the God of their fathers, and played the, harlot after the gods of the peoples of the land, whom God had destroyed before them.¹⁵⁶

What is only alluded to earlier is, however, very explicit around the time of the pending exile of the Northern Kingdom. Recording God oracle given to that people some thirty years before the fall of Samaria, Hosea presents us with a striking illustration of the God-Israel, husband-wife analogy.

Israel As The Unfaithful Wife Of Yahweh

God wastes no time in the oracle getting to the point. Says he,

“Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry, and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the Lord.” (Hos. 1:2)

Obediently, the prophet marries Gomer, who promptly bears what may have been their only legitimate child, for the text does not use of her subsequent offspring the telltale “bore him” as it does of the first. Nonetheless, Hosea names the next two children upon the command of the Lord. The name of the last child speaks of the nature of the relation between God and Israel: “Lo-ammi,” literally, “not my people.” By this name God wishes to tell the Israelites that “you are not My people and I am not your God” (v. 9).

But lest any think the analogy does not come into the story, that is, that the rejection will only be God of Israel, and not Hosea of Gomer, the second chapter makes the matter clear. Hosea, apparently speaking to Jezreel (the legitimate firstborn), notifies Gomer:

Contend with your mother, contend, For she is not my wife, and I am not her husband; And let her put away her harlotry from her face, And her adultery from between her breasts,

Hosea continues to speak of the things he plans to do to Gomer:

Lest I strip her naked
And expose her as on the day when she was born.
I will also make her like a wilderness,
Make her like desert land,
And slay her with thirst
Also, I will have no compassion on her children,
Because they are children of harlotry.
For their mother has played the harlot (1:3-5a)

Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns,
And I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths. (2:6)

Therefore, I will take back My grain at harvest time
And My new wine in its season.
I will also take away My wool and My flax
Given to cover her nakedness.
And then I will uncover her lewdness
In the sight of her lovers,
And no one will rescue her out of My hand.
I will put an end to all her gaiety (2:9-11a)

And I will destroy her vines and fig trees. (2:12a)

And I will punish her for the days of the Baals
When she used to offer sacrifices to them …
And follow her lovers, so that she forgot Me (2:13)

Clearly, these adversities are intended to make the erring wife come to her senses and return:

Then she will say, “I will go back to my first husband, For it was better for me then than now!”(2:7)

And she will come at the first husband’s invitation: I will allure her, … And speak kindly to her. (2:14)

Taking the literal interpretation of this section of the Book of Hosea, we are faced with the fact of Gomer’s husband’s discovery of her infidelity, his stated rejection of her, his intention to make her see the error of her ways, and his attempt to restore the relationship. On the allegorical interpretation, this section speaks of the relationship of God to Israel and perhaps has nothing to do with real events in the life of Hosea. I prefer to combine the views and argue that God really had Hosea marry and go through the pain of Gomer’s infidelity, and that Hosea did, in fact, reject her for that infidelity, stating his intention to treat her in such a way as to make her come to her senses. I hold that chapter 2 is largely anticipatory of actions that Hosea did in fact take, but the historical actions themselves are not recorded. Chapter 3 resumes the oracle at a point subsequent to Gomer’s realizing her true state. That chapter tells of how Hosea regained Gomer’s companionship.¹⁵⁷

Israel as The Disciplined Bride Of Yahweh

It is more difficult to discern when and if Hosea, in rejecting Gomer and her behavior, actually went through a legal divorce. Some argue that he did not. Representative of them is Francis I. Anderson, who thinks that Gomer (representative of Israel) has deserted Hosea (cf. 2:7 vis-a-vis 2:15) and committed adultery. Accordingly, Anderson believes that “you are not my wife and I am not her husband”¹⁵⁸ simply means that they are no longer living together. But this is hasty. It seems clear from the fact that children two and three are “children of harlotry” (1:2), yet named by Hosea (1:6, 9) that Gomer was, at the point of 2:1-2, living with him. Moreover, it is clear that Hosea’s threats (2:2-6) are then yet future. If so, then one would imagine that the pursuit of lovers (2:7) should also be considered future rather than present, and 2:7 is so translated. In addition, 2:7 states that she will not “overtake” the lovers. But having two illegitimate children by them at the time of 2:2 certainly speaks of her having been overtaken at that point! It is more reasonable to assume that her lovers are predicted to abandon her, at some point in the near future. But, if future at all, then Anderson’s point about a present desertion fails.

Arguing further, Anderson says that no simple dissolution of the covenant can be intended by 1:9, because

the covenant nowhere makes provision for such an eventuality. Covenant-breaking on the part of Israel (unilateral withdrawal) calls for severe punishment Israel cannot opt out by no longer acknowledging Yahweh. The punishment is not an expression of a broken relationship On the contrary, it is enforced within the relationship; punishment maintains the covenant Similarly Hosea’s threats of punishment are proof that his marriage continues. The corrective discipline expresses his authority over his wife, and his continuing claim upon her The husband does not take any initiative to dissolve the marriage. That, rather, is what the wife has already done by her conduct.¹⁵⁹

This is a strange collection of statements. Anderson seems to have lost track of the analogy altogether. For though it is true that the Law made no provision for a legal release of an adulteress from her covenant, it is to be remembered that the Law did require the execution of the adulteress (Lev. 20:10). It made no provision for an adulteress to be punished by some means that involved her staying alive “within the relationship.” Clearly it will not do to refer to the terms of the covenant, if by that we mean the prescriptions of the Mosaic Constitutions. It is far preferable simply to refer the matter to the practice of marriage/divorce in the days of Hosea and see the oracle as using these practices to speak of how God now intends to relate to Israel.

The Commentary of Jeremiah

But what were the practices of Israel at that time? It is here that Jeremiah 3 enters the picture to support the view that Hosea really did divorce Gomer. For it is about the same events spoken of in Hosea 2 that Jeremiah’s oracle speaks:

Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there. And I thought, “after she has done all these things, she will return to Me”; but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of Divorce [Jer. 3:6-8a].

The “treacherous departing” (Jer. 3:20) is within the covenant, not a desertion that is physical. And the rejection by the husband of the wife involves a legal writ. This is all rather straightforward and apropos. Jeremiah’s oracle is speaking of the event of the casting away of the Northern Kingdom years earlier. It clearly identifies the action of God against that kingdom as a certified divorce, and not merely as a temporary and informal failure to provide bed and board.

An Alleged Isaiac Alternative

Anderson is, of course, familiar with Jeremiah 3:8:

Jeremiah 3:1-14 shows that Yahweh saw no difficulty in overriding such legalities in order to remarry his divorced Israel. Since Jeremiah 3 shows the influence of Hosea, its clear statement that Yahweh divorced Israel Jer. 3:8), the northern kingdom, could be used as evidence that Hos. 2:4 is the declaration embodied in the bill of divorce Isaiah 50-1 contains another tradition it implies that there never was a divorce.¹⁶⁰

The verse in Isaiah that Anderson has in mind reads:

Thus says the Lord, “Where is the certificate of divorce, By which I have sent your mother away? Or to whom of My creditors did I sell you?”

In this verse, the mother stands for Israel as a nation, while the children stand for the Israelites as individuals.¹⁶¹ Something happens to the Nation and its individuals, but what?

Anderson sees in this verse a rhetorical denial that God gave a writing of divorcement to Israel. Preferring this Isaiac tradition to that of Jeremiah, Anderson concludes that Hosea’s illustrative marital situation did not involve a true and complete divorcement, but only a separation. He is joined in this conclusion by D.H. Small,¹⁶² who cites Westerman’s translation: “Where then is the bill of divorce with which I am supposed to have put your mother away?”¹⁶³ Thus Anderson and Small simply counter Jeremiah with Isaiah and choose the one which agrees with their view of what must have transpired in the life of Hosea.

But is this choice really necessary? I think not. There are several factors that deserve discussion before the method of “arbitrary choosing” is taken. First, we should remember the audiences of each of the books in question. The Children of Israel are divided into two nations. They are not simply Israel. Hosea prophesied to the Northern Kingdom about thirty years (750 B.C.) prior to its fall (722 B.C.).¹⁶⁴ His oracle speaks of and to that kingdom. Isaiah, lived till about 681, and the oracles spoken in 40-66 are assigned to his latter years.¹⁶⁵ His oracle was spoken to the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Jeremiah spoke his prophecy to the Southern Kingdom in about 626 B.C.¹⁶⁶ However, Jeremiah’s comments regarding the divorce writ relate to the previous judgment of God upon the Northern Kingdom in 722 B.C., not the threatened judgment of God upon the Southern Kingdom.

Accordingly, the Isaiac comment should not be brought into direct contrast with the Jeremiah 3:8 comment, since they refer to different kingdoms, who will receive judgment at different times. Anderson and Small imply that the divorce writs referred to in Jeremiah and Isaiah relate to the same divorce. They do not. Only Jeremiah’s writ comment should be seen as a commentary on Hosea, since they do speak of the same events (Hosea in anticipation; Jeremiah in evaluation). While Jeremiah may have wrongly typified the facts about the Northern Kingdom’s judgment by speaking of divorce writ it is not acceptable summarily to dismiss Jeremiah’s commentary on the basis of Isaiah. Let us first consider the possibility that Jeremiah wrongly typified the events, then we shall return to a more complicated attempt to dismiss Jeremiah on the basis of Isaiah.

Did Hosea Divorce Gomer?

If Jeremiah inappropriately identified the judgment of the Northern Kingdom as a divorce complete with a writ, then we should be able to draw that conclusion from Hosea itself. In that regard, first note that Hosea does not deny that the casting away of the Northern Kingdom was an official and complete divorce. Second, note that the language by which God is represented as relating to His people is a direct denial of the language of the covenant (“You are not my people and I am not your God”).

To facilitate that attempt let us look at the opinion of D.H. Small.¹⁶⁷ Small, a sociologists primarily concerned with counseling those facing possible divorce, focuses his comments on the picture of God’s judgment: Hosea’s relationship to his wife. Small offers no less than ten reasons to doubt that Hosea actually and officially divorced Gomer. Let us look at each in turn.

1. The structure of the passage is two-fold, not three-fold as would be required were Hosea to have 1) married, 2) divorced, and 3) remarried. The actions God requires are demarcated by the formula “Go … ” There are only two such: “Go, take [a wife]” and “Go, love [her again].” There is no “Go, divorce.” Further, the second command is not “Go take … a wife,” which we should expect if a remarriage were in view.

This structural analysis is impressive mostly because Small leaves out other interactions between God and Hosea that occur between the “Go” statements. Included in those interactions are those which are thought to imply a divorcement. If we were to jump from “Go” to “Go”, we cannot explain the need for the second “Go.” The second “Go” says “love again.” Obviously there has been a hiatus of love in the love by the husband that has occurred between the “Go”s, and not merely some action which caused it on the part of the wife. Small obviously does not want to interpret that hiatus as a divorce. He wants to stress the difference in language as showing that the two “Go”s are different. But the inclusion of the word “again” in the second “Go” ties the “Go” statements together. The absence of “love” in the first “Go” should no more imply that there was no love in the initial marriage, than an absence of “take” in the second should imply that there was no need for an official remarriage.

2. The prophet’s subsequent message denies an official divorce, when God “How can I give you up, O Israel? … “I will not destroy Ephraim again”(10:8-9). Small argues that Hosea thus perceives that the Northern Kingdom’s judgment, and therefore Hosea’s marital relations as a picture of it, as not a final statement about the relationship(s). Surely so, but irrelevant. Ultimate restoration does not preclude an intermediate, complete divorcement. After all, Hosea has God saying that once He destroyed Ephraim. When was that? With the divorcement and subsequent withdrawal of support.

3. The implications of the Deuteronomy divorce law precludes the acknowledged remarriage. Small argues that Deut. 24:1-4 will not allow the remarriage of Gomer to Hosea. Neither would it allow the remarriage of Israel to Yahweh. Small pounds the pulpit by saying that Deut. 24 is “explicit” in this regard. As already argued, Deut. 24 is not meant to deal with situations such as that of Gomer. Hosea is not divorcing Gomer for flimsy reasons, but for adultery. God is not divorcing Ephraim for burning the covenantal soup, but for unfaithfulness to the promises they took upon themselves by oath after the Exodus.

4. Adherence to Levitical Law would not permit remarriage of Hosea to Gomer—a remarriage which the text affirms. While priests were not allowed to marry prostitutes, Small admits (as do all others) that Gomer is represented in the text as having prostituted herself. It is also admitted by Small that Hosea is not a priest, but is a prophet. Since that law does not apply to him, it is non sequitur to introduce it as argument as to why we cannot interpret Hosea as having divorced Gomer. Small’s logic is very loose in this section—the argument is vague.

5. Divorce would imply a negation of the Covenant for judgment’s sake, and God does not want the ultimate end of the covenant. Small contends that the judgment in Hosea, is not final dissolution, but rather a temporary suspension. He asks, “Does it contain future possibilities of restoration?”¹⁶⁸ Small cites authorities which assert that the language employed by Hosea is divorce language, but rejects them because he believes that it was spoken to bring about restoration, not to end the relationship. Also emphasized is the fact that Hosea threatens to sanction Gomer by the withdrawal of support, and Small feels that this is inappropriate if a divorce is already obtained by the words, “she is not my wife and I am not her husband” (v. 2). This is similar to an objection made by Anderson in his Hosea commentary to the effect that a man who has divorced his erring wife has no right to treat her as Hosea intends. Indeed, Anderson further objects that if we see Gomer as having become married to another (cf. Jer. 3:1), her relationships would no longer be adultery against Hosea. The original husband would have no grounds for disciplining her or for unmasking her lovers. This is the main obstacle in the way of identifying the statement in 2:4a as an act of divorce. That would be the end of the story. There would be no basis for all that follows. But in 2:6-15 the lovers remain “lovers.” Hosea 2:9 suggests that the “first husband” [2:7] was still her husband. She had deserted him, but he had not renounced her. Her amours continue to be adultery against him; 2:4-15 treats her as an adulterous wife, not simply as a promiscuous woman.¹⁶⁹

This sounds impressive, but there is more thunder than rain here. The fact is that God did divorce the Northern Kingdom and did continue His claims on her. Some other explanation needs to be found. Several possible solutions present themselves. Either the fact that she is the guilty party makes the difference,¹⁷⁰ or the “adversity” mentioned in Hosea 2:6-15 is another way to speak of the implications of the act of divorcement. We prefer the latter, that is, that 2:6-15 is simply a way of speaking of the social and economic results of divorce. This is to say, by legally divorcing her (2:2) he now has the legal right to take back the clothing he has given her (2:3, 10) and the materials of his field by which she can make more clothing (2:9), to disinherit her children (2:4), to block her out of his house (2:6), to cut her off from the food and drink that she shares in his house (2:9) as well as the crops from which she could get sustenance (2:12),¹⁷¹ and in general to cut her off from the way of life that she enjoys—that he has made possible. Thus, when she comes to realize that she has been simply used by her lovers, who will not be impressed by her without those husband-provided luxuries (2:7, 10), she will repent and return.

All this parallels exactly the facts of God and Israel. When God ceased to support Israel, “she” lost all “she” had and was no longer treated “respectfully” by “her” lovers. The loss of the husband-provided goods was, in that case, mediated by the hand of the “lovers” (e.g., Babylonia), but that fact is not detrimental to our solution. We simply need to point out that after the divorcement (the time of Hosea) there were social and economic losses (the deportation) and that a similar experience of divorce and loss apparently occurred in the life of Gomer. It was not so much that God pursued Israel in Babylon, but that he abandoned Israel to Babylon, and, that while “she” was there, he spoke kindly to “her” and called “her” to return. The same can be said for Gomer. Hosea divorced her, abandoned her to her own insufficient devices, and then allured her back to himself.

As to Small, his dilemmas are all false. As stated before, full divorce does not preclude restoration. Divorce is a discipline. If it works, the wayward Gomer can return, the vows renewed and the marriage restored. To state divorce, and note the pending consequences is fully realistic. Small complains that to threaten consequences is not the same as to take action, which one would expect if this were a real divorce. But that is to press the issue too hard. What inhibits a divorcer from threatening action before he actually takes it? Isn’t that exactly what we would expect someone who is divorcing for the purpose of discipline? First he threatens, then he takes action if the threat does not succeed. Hosea has given the formula for divorce. Action is expected to follow, and will, unless Gomer comes to her senses. Alas it does not, the support is withdrawn, she falls into slavery as a result of the withdrawn support, then comes to her senses, and finally Hosea buys her out of slavery and restores the marriage! Those are reasonable facts drawn from the text.

6. Gomer is said to return to her “first” husband. Small argues that an assumption of a second marriage on the part of commentators is hasty, and if true, would preclude remarriage to Hosea. Rather, says Small, the “first” simply identifies Hosea as the one to whom she returns, an action “impossible had there been a divorce.”¹⁷² This is confused thinking. Not even the irrelevant Deut. 24 passage prohibited a divorced-but-not-remarried woman from returning to her husband. Small, after all, doesn’t think she actually remarried, because to do so implies that she had a divorce, and Small wants to avoid that conclusion at all costs. What Small seems unwilling to face is the total irrelevance of the word “first” if she has not been at least divorced. The text would simply say, “I shall return to my husband.” If no remarriage and/or divorce, the “first” is superfluous. Small’s comment that “first” could be supplied “in case any should wonder” is disingenuous. Rather than clarify to whom she is returning, such an inclusion confuses her audience by introducing the possibility of more than a “first.”

7. Hosea was threatening a lesser punishment, stripping Gomer, rather than divorce. Again, after amassing authorities who associate stripping with divorce (de Vaux, Gaster, and Gordis), Small elusively cites the context of Hosea as teaching that the stripping threatened here argues against interpretation of divorce, apparently on the authority of Gordis.¹⁷³ But Small offers nothing from the context which proves this, and the probability that the stripping threatened is one of the anticipated consequences of the casting out is far stronger.

8. The use of the words: “love again” instead of “remarry” implies that there never was a divorce, only a separation. The restoration is from “slave-concubinage.” This return to the structural language adds little to argument 1. First, it is incredible that a full wife could even end up in slave-concubinage, presumably to another man! Second, Old Testament law prescribes redemption from slave-concubinage only when the relation was not consummated (Ex. 21:8). Second, insofar as “love again” is immediately followed by “a woman who is loved by her husband,” it must be understood that the “love again” signifies something other than subjective relation. During the separation, Hosea has not ceased personally to be concerned for Gomer. What then? “Go, love again” must be comparable to the first “Go, take … ” And, since the first “Go” clearly involved a marriage, so too, the second, like unto the first, strongly implies a remarriage. Small’s further consideration of the term “husband,” especially citing Jer. 3 does nothing to help his case, since in that passage a clearly divorced Ephraim (and not the still married Judah) is said to be loved by Someone Who is said to have divorced her!

But a question now arises as to whether it is proper to speak of Gomer as an adulteress, loved by her husband, if Hosea has freed her by divorce? In fact, what are we to make of the same sort of idea found in a number of places? For example, Isaiah 54:5 says, “For your husband is your maker … For the Lord has called you, like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, even like a wife of one’s youth when she is rejected.” Or again, there is the NIV rendering of Jeremiah 3:14, which says that God is still a “husband” to the Northern Kingdom that He has just divorced (v. 8). In each of these instances divorce is more or less certain, but the language of existing covenant is employed. How can this be?

Similar language is found in Isaiah 54:5-6. But there, the text is a prophetic projection into the time of the return, when covenant people will have been remarried to Yahweh. Thus it is appropriate to use the language of existing covenant. But it is not possible to use this sort of argument for Hosea. One possibility is that the text is employing a figure of speech (i.e., heterosis), where sense of the English present tense is employed, though the severance is complete, to emphasize the offense to the legal covenant then sundered and past. But this is not the most sophisticated way to understand the text. In fact, Hosea 3:1 is more complex than the translations reveal. First, the words for “wife” and “husband” are ambiguous. “Wife” may simply be “woman,” and the term used for “husband” is actually more commonly translated “friend.” Additionally, the friend is not identified as “her” friend, but only as “a” friend. Thus, the text may be saying nothing more than, “Go love a woman loved by a friend.” This rendering would hardly imply an existing marital relation. The fact that the text does say that she is an “adulteress” complicates this analysis, but does not ultimately defeat it. We should also remember that an unrepentant offender is still known by his or her offense-term, even if not continually practicing the offense at a later time.¹⁷⁴

The Jeremiah 3:14 text, which also speaks of God as a husband to previously divorced Israel (3:8) is more difficult to translate than most Bibles reveal. The term the NIV renders “husband” (and the KJV renders “am married”) is actually the verb bâ’al. Though this word can be translated that way, it could also be translated less related to marriage, and more to politics, e.g., “have dominion.” Additionally, it is the preterite perfect, a form used of this verb only here and in Jeremiah 31:32. Such a form is not clear as to time. The dominion is completed action, but that dominion may or may not extend to the present. In Jeremiah 31, the presumption is that it does not. In Jeremiah 3 the translators have chosen to translate the exact same word as if the dominion does continue in the present. Should we take 31:32 as meaning that Israel broke the covenant while bound to the Lord (as they still are), or chapter 3 as meaning that God calls the apostate sons back to himself—reminding them that they initially went astray while he had legal rights over them (though that dominion is now technically removed by the divorce writ of the same chapter)? As for the grammar itself, we can only be sure that dominion once existed.¹⁷⁵

Recall, too, that in neither case (31 nor 3) are we assured that the “dominion” in view is connected with the marital metaphor. After all, the Israelites had a son-slave relationship to the Lord before they even ratified the Mosaic covenant—that covenant bearing the weight of the marital metaphor. Could it be that the Ba’-a-li and related words have predominately political rather than marital overtones in the Prophets? For example, in Hosea 2:16, where the noun form is used, the context before and after strongly implies that marriage does not exist when Israel calls God its master. In 1:9 God says Israel is not his people. In 2:19 he tells Israel that he will betroth them in some future day. Ba’-a-li rests chronologically between these passages.¹⁷⁶ Thus, subsequent to the divorce, Israel is not considered the marriage partner of God, but merely a runaway slave. They revert back to the position of Israel before Sinai—a people redeemed out of Egypt with a strong arm.¹⁷⁷

In any case it is ill advised to base a theology of marriage upon the words and verb tenses of these questioned passages. Their significance to this subject remains moot. It seems preferable to follow Hosea 2:2, which denies in strong terms that a marital relation exists past the divorce. The Hebrew there employs the terms of factual negation (10), which rules out the existence of the condition under discussion (i.e., marriage).¹⁷⁸ Hosea is saying that he no longer considers Gomer to be “his” (possessive suffix) “woman” or “wife” (standard term for a full partner).

9. Since Gomer is said to be restored by a purchase, she cannot have been divorced. To explain this point, Small asserts that the price Hosea paid for Gomer could not be a bride-price but must be a slave-redemption. To make an argument of this, we have to supply the premise that such a slave-redemption is logically incompatibly with a previous divorce and subsequent remarriage. Instead, Small argues that his paying the redemption implies that Gomer was not “living in freedom.”¹⁷⁹ It is hard to see what this proves. Further, the verses which Small forthwith cites to show that it is appropriate to redeem a woman from slavery-concubinage, are odd to say the least. They seem to have come from some sort of concordance study of “30 shekels of silver”, rather than from detailed consideration of the topic. The first verse cited, Exodus 21:7-11 and 32, would seem to preclude redemption of a slave whose concubinage has been consummated (though in the latter verse a killed slave woman is said to have the value Hosea paid), the second, Zechariah 11:12, has nothing to do with the redemption of a woman at all, but only of a shepherd’s wages. The last, Leviticus 27:4, has to do with redeeming a servant woman who the master has previously devoted to the Lord.

Contrariwise it would be most irregular for a wife to be able to sell herself into slavery, and clearly immoral/illegal for her to do so if it involved concubinage. Recalling that a husband had the right to veto a wife’s vow to the Lord (Num. 30:6-8), is it likely that Hebrew society, much less Hosea, would stand by silently while a married woman sold herself into slavery. Would the Hebrew law allow two sexual covenants for the same woman at the same time? Certainly not. The very fact that Gomer was in slavery implies that she was legally free from her marriage to Hosea. And the only divorce legislation in the text about divorce speaks of a divorce writ (i.e., Deut. 24:1-4). While it is true that the divorce writ in that instance is for the protection of a treacherously divorced woman, and an adulteress like Gomer would not deserve such protection, it may be assumed that, in the face of inoperative execution laws, the righteous husband, himself deserved the writ to insure that he would not be held legally responsible for the debts of an adulterous wife. The text of Hosea does not imply that Hosea is obligated to redeem Gomer, but rather that he chooses to do so.

10. When Hosea says he intends to “betroth” Gomer, he means to reaffirm his troth. Small’s introduction of “betroth” into the arguments is an unmitigated disaster. It completely undercuts his point, though he seems oblivious to it. How odd it would be for a man already married to say that he was going to betroth his own wife! I know of no instance of a married man saying he wanted to betroth his wife, and Small offers none. Simply, the statement of intention to betroth unquestionably implies that no marital relation exists.

In conclusion, none of these arguments is convincing, either alone or in combination. And, frankly, nothing in Hosea itself inclines us to believe that Gomer was not fully divorced from Hosea. Though Hosea does not record the issuance of a writ, there is no reason to assume that none was given. There is nothing in Hosea which is incompatibly with Jeremiah’s representation of God’s divorce with a writ of the Northern Kingdom.

Did Isaiah Deny That Judah Received A Writ Of Divorce?

The compatibility of Hosea with Jeremiah as to the divorce of the Northern Kingdom relaxes the critical tension between Hosea and the other prophets. But we still have to ask whether Isaiah’s understanding of divorce (speaking of the Southern Kingdom) is logically compatible with the Jeremiah-Hosea understanding of divorce as a discipline (when it speaks of the Northern Kingdom). There is also the matter of Jeremiah’s oracle which threatens divorce to the Southern Kingdom. Specifically, does Isaiah represent God as rejecting divorce as a way of dealing with a wayward covenant partner, whereas Jeremiah and Hosea represent God as using divorce as a proper divine discipline of such a partner? I do not think that it will do to suggest that God arbitrarily deals with one kingdom in a way different than he does another. So what may we say to resolve this logical dilemma? Nor do I believe that it is necessary to conclude just yet that Jeremiah and Isaiah represent two contradictory schools of thought regarding discipline of an unfaithful spouse.

I believe the solution rests in realizing that Isaiah 50:1 does not necessarily deny, but may rather affirm, the divorcement of Judah. Consider again Isaiah 50:1. Adding the latter part of the verse to the part quoted earlier we have:

A: “Where is the certificate of divorce,
By which I have sent your mother away?

B: Or to whom of My creditors did I sell you?

b: Behold, you were sold for your iniquities,

a: And for your transgressions
Your mother was sent away.”

A couple of things are clear from the second part of this verse. First, the nation was “sent away” and the individuals sold into bondage. Second, the fault for this predicament lies with the sinful Israelites, not with Yahweh. Whatever conclusions we draw about this verse must not ignore those two primary facts. Note too, that this agrees with Jeremiah, through whom God says, “ … for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away … ” (3:8).

But let us not be short-sighted. Let us consider the broader context of Isaiah’s oracle. His statement is in the midst of a section where God pledges some day to restore soon-to-be-punished Judah to Himself. Chapter 49 presents the Servant of Yahweh as the Savior of His people. Judah is presented as a child feeling abandoned, and God as the Mother rushing to the child’s aid (49:14-15). Nations who will have devastated Judah will honor her (49:22-23). Again, Judah is pictured as prey, as captives temporarily held by a might man/tyrant (49:24 ff.) The text asks rhetorically, is God able to free His people from captivity to such strong nations? The answer is a rhetorical “Yes.”

It is at this point that the questioned verses arise, preceding the famous section of the Suffering Servant who will redeem Judah. After all those kind statements about what God intends for the good of His people, it must not be forgotten that they are in the mess that they are in because of their own evil, and that their salvation will be at the cost of the Righteous Savior. Thus the fiftieth chapter begins prolepticly with the assertion that they have committed adultery and have been sent away. They have committed iniquity and have been sold. And while it is not true that they have been sold to make up for God’s bad debt, they are (will be) sold none-the-less. Whatever may be the case with regard to a divorce writ, the nation will be sent away, like the cast off, adulterous wife that she is.

The text says that, in spite of the adulteries that have placed Judah in this position, there is hope. And what is that position? It is the position of a divorced wife of an enslaved child. God stands ready to save. But Judah needs (will need) to acknowledge their guilt and admit to their plight. They need (will need) to bring out the bill of divorcement once given and it will be rescinded. They need to identify the tyrants to whom they have been justly sold, and God will deliver Judah from them.

Too much emphasis should not be placed upon the “creditor” and the “or.” We all know that God owes no debts, even if He pays ransoms. We all know that He rescinds judgment, when there is repentance. These phrases have the effect of saying, “Does the fact of a divorce writ once justly given, or the slavery justly experienced, stand forever in the way of restoration? Certainly not! Turn in the writ. Admit to the fact that you are in slavery as a punishment by God. God will withdraw the rejection (judgment) and ransom the slave. Like Israel Judah will be divorced, they will be enslaved, but God will call them back on His terms. He is not an unjust divorcer (like the man of Deut. 24:1). He is a discipliner. How quickly will Judah learn her lesson?

But what we must not do is say that because God has no debtors, He gave no divorce, or that the “or” must mean that because He did not sell them for a bad debt, He cannot have once given them a valid divorce. By the same token, it is wrong to assume that because God will restore a repentant Judah, He must not have ever given a valid divorce to unrepentant Israel or Judah. Restoration does not imply no divorce ever took place … only that the separation has ended.

This understanding of the text allows 1) for a normal meaning of “sent away” in the second part of the verse. It is difficult to see how “sent away” could mean anything other than divorce, except to a people such as ourselves who have a concept of legal separation from “bed and board” without a complete cessation of the legal relationship.¹⁸⁰ 2) It also allows for a normal understanding of the rhetorical thrust of both questions in the first part of the verse. Finally, please note the poetic structure again. The questions preceded by a capital letter to designate the structure and answered by the small letters. Just as the question of whether they were sold is answered “Yes”. So too the question as to whether “she” was divorced is to be answered “Yes.” The omission of the word “certificate of divorce” in the “answer” section should not be a problem. It is mere figure of speech … and ellipses, implied by what is repeated: “sent away”.

In conclusion, it may be said that there is nothing that prohibits us from seeing Isaiah as teaching that Judah was divorced. And the text in all likelihood implies it. At worst, it might be argued that Judah was divorced without benefit of a divorce writ.¹⁸¹ That is possible, but not likely. I shall have more to say about this shortly.

Does Jeremiah Recount the Divorce of Judah?

What, then, may we learn from the prophetic books of Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah? We learn that divorce is used metaphorically of God’s discipline of Israel for their adulterous activities against the covenant. The linguistic thread that links the use of God to the husband and Israel to the wife is the idea of “adultery”—an adultery that, in the case of God and Israel, is sexual only metaphorically but actually an instance of unfaithfulness to the covenant. In other words, adultery is at root, or in principle, not essentially a sexual term, though it connotes sexual infidelity. Its essential definition is “breach of covenant, unfaithfulness, treachery, infidelity.” A definition such as this shows how the idea of sexual infidelity on the part of the wife, in an Old Testament marriage, parallels the breach of covenant on the part of a husband who fails to keep his pledge to provide for his wife. There will be further discussion about this relationship at the end of this section, but first we must look at another prophetic treatment of the wife’s infidelity to her husband: the intermarriage between Israelites and the women of the land in the days of Ezra the scribe.

Divorce as an Ultimate Solution for Adultery

(Ezra 9 and 10)

The harlotry of Israel brings forth yet another and different treatment of the divorce issue in the Book of Ezra. In the ninth and tenth chapters, we read of Ezra’s discovery of marriages between the returned Israelites and the women of the land (Samaritans?). The text tells how some of the princes approached Ezra and told him of this intermarriage (9:1) and of the extent to which the evil had gone-even the princes and rulers were involved (9:2).¹⁸² Heth argues oddly that, “Ezra’s prayer seems to indicate further that ‘intermarriage’ had not yet actually taken place (compare Ezra 9:2 with 9:14).” In fact, we are later informed that even the sons of the priests had gone into apostasy in this manner (10:18). The fact that the people brought the matter up to Ezra shows their sensitivity to the teachings of the Law on this matter, a sensitivity that preceded any evident reading of the Law to the people by Ezra.¹⁸³

Much of what we are considering now is supportive of what we have already seen in this chapter regarding the non-sexual aspects of the meaning of the word adultery. The unfaithfulness of Ezra’s time only seems more sexual than that spoken of in the time of the pre-exilic prophets, in that marriage, which involves sexual relations, was a part of the facts of the case. But to stress the physical side of the unfaithfulness unduly is to miss the center of the passage. For it is the idea of covenanting with the “enemy” rather than simply coupling with them that is the problem. Or, to be more precise, the problem is that, in establishing legal marital relations with the women of the land, they had broken their “marriage” covenant with God. It would not have been unfaithfulness for them to have married Jewish girls, or even to have taken women of the land as concubines; sex with a human being was not the issue. It was the breaking of one of the rules of the Mosaic covenant wherein lay the offense. There is also in this account a reaffirmation of the important point that divorce, though a substitute for the Mosaic corrective of execution, is a necessary and acceptable means of discipline. For first the people (10:3) and then the prophet (10:11) understand separation/divorce as being “God’s” way for the matter to be resolved. “But,” one may properly ask, “was this really God’s will, or only their own thought?” After all, neither of these statements is presented as an oracle. But that is only an academic point.

First, it is clear that the prophet thought it was consonant with revealed truth. This should not be minimized. Remember that it was a grave offense for a prophet to speak as from the Lord something that God had not said (Deut. 18:20-22).¹⁸⁴ For God’s prophet to have advised immorality in God’s name and not have been corrected by God is difficult to accept.

Second, in those passages where preventive separation (i.e., antecedent separation from the Gentiles) had been enjoined upon Israel, the principle that evil must be removed from the land (e.g., Deut. 7:5) is also taught. The putting away of heathen wives is a rather plain and reasonable application of that principle. The historical incident of the covenant with Gibeon (Josh. 9) shows that the people of Israel were able to apply the principle to instances of covenants with people of the land—in that case, however, the culpable negligence of the people in making the covenant in the first place called forth God’s requirement of them to retain the covenantal relation, as a sort of punishment. The case of the people in Ezra’s time differs from the Gibeonite case in that the marriages in Ezra involved rebellion rather than ignorance. Thus, I believe that the correct understanding of a basic principle was what led to the valid application of it suggested by the people and Ezra in their day.

Third, I hasten to mention, as well, that Israel’s past times of apostasy had often been ended by days of repentance and revival, in which God blessed Israel for their putting away the things of evil to which they had clung. Read, for example, 2 Kings 18:1-7 or 2 Kings 23, which recount national renewal that sounds strikingly like that recorded in Ezra 9 and 10, since both the Kings materials and Ezra use the language of “making” or renewing the covenant. There are also a number of other prophetic passages that explicitly call the Israelites to “remove” evil deeds from among them. Since intermarriage is an evil deed, to remove it would be to divorce the heathen women (cf., e.g., Isa. 1:16).

The major difference between the Ezra incident and prior applications (viz., Isaiah, Hosea, and Jeremiah) of the principle of divorce as discipline is that the other prophets all apply the principle that divorce is a discipline for adultery by speaking of the putting away of the adulterous spouse, whereas in the Ezra case it is the spouse of the adulterer that is to be put away. But our discussion of the history of divorce as a discipline in previous revelation reveals that this “new” application is really clearer in the (older) Law (as contrasted with the Prophets) than the application of divorce as a punishment for the offender. Actually, the putting away of the offender (Isaiah/Hosea/Jeremiah) was similar in net effect to the putting away of the spouse of the offender (Ezra), in that in all cases the putting away had a strong chastising effect. It brought sorrow to the offender. In the former case it deprived the sinner of the blessings of covenant with the spouse (God) and led to the abandonment of the sinner by the partner in crime (the nations); in the latter case it deprived the sinners (the men of Israel) of their partners in crime (the women of die land) and led to the abandonment of the pleasures with those partners.¹⁸⁵

Thus, we conclude that there is nothing really new or unusual in the treatment of the apostates in Ezra’s day. The admonition to divorce the women as a “fruit of repentance” was implicitly set forth in the Law and the prior Prophets. As an instance of correcting an “adulterous marriage,” it set a precedent for dealing with later similar cases (Neh. 13) and anticipated the judgment by John the Baptist of Herod (Matt. 14:3).¹⁸⁶ As an example of Jesus’ implication that there were some who were not joined together by God (Matt. 19:6b), it gave rise to the question of whether or not new believers should divorce their wives (cf. 1 Cor. 7:12 ff.).The question, then, is not whether the Ezra corrective is unique,¹⁸⁷ but, rather, since it is not unique, but a strongly grounded moral principle of correction, whether it is to be applied in a similar way today. Some commentators contend that it should not be so applied. Laney, for example, cites three reasons for rejecting it:

1. Ezra was concerned for the preservation of the Jewish people as a separate and distinct nation … God does not seem to be similarly concerned to preserve the racial or ethnic purity of Gentile peoples during an age of grace (cf. Gal. 3:28).

2. In the Old Testament period we see that intermarriage would lead to idolatry … No such consequences are stated in the case of a mixed marriage between a Christian and a non-Christian … The presence of the believer in the home sets it apart …

3. … to make application … to modern marriages … would contradict the clear teaching of Paul in 1 Cor. 7:12-13.¹⁸⁸

These points, however, fail to convince. Ezra may have thought of ethnic purity, but the text makes it clear that his chief concern was with the spiritual apostasy that the interfaith marriages implied. Indeed, it is the interfaith not the interracial aspects that are the clear concern of the Old Testament. Was not Rahab in the Lord’s line? She was a woman of the land. But she was a proselyte; her faith in Yahweh made the difference. It is still the case in the New Testament that moral/spiritual purity proscribes intentional interfaith marriages (cf. 2 Cor. 6:14).¹⁸⁹ It would be presumptuous to suggest that when the principle of separation is restated in the non-ethnic realm, the principle of correction should be considered obsolete. One would expect moral continuity unless there was specific New Testament annulment of it.

Laney and others break this hermeneutical rule by presuming discontinuity.¹⁹⁰ In short, intentional interfaith marriage yields just as spiritually damaging consequences in the believer’s life today as in Old Testament times. And though it is true that the “believer sanctifies” the unbelieving spouse, it must be remembered that Paul’s context was Corinthian intermarriage, which was not a species of apostasy but the result of conversion. This latter point enables us to see the error of Laney’s third argument: Paul is dealing with a different sort of inter faith marriage. But I will reserve full comment on Paul’s teaching till a more fitting place in the discussion.

I conclude, then, that the principle set forth in Ezra—that divorce is a morally proper corrective for apostasy—abides, unless evidence can be found in further revelation for its abrogation. I believe that none such can be found.

The Adultery of Divorce

(Malachi 2)

One of the first passages appealed to by popular writers on the subject of divorce is Malachi 2:16. The verse often functions as a sort of absolute veto, and the appeal to it is thought to summarily end the discussion. What could be clearer than the express statement of Scripture: “For I hate divorce,’ says the Lord, the God of Israel”? Paul E. Steele and Charles C. Ryrie call this text “one of the most profound texts in the Scripture on the subject of marriage permanence” and move quickly to the conclusion that God despises divorce.¹⁹¹ Laney tells us that “God’s attitude toward divorce” is summed up by his statement here.¹⁹²

The essential argument of these men is apparently as follows: since in the clause quoted divorce is rejected with no qualification at all, we should reject divorce absolutely. This argument is risky, to say the least. Though I would admit that the burden of proof rests with those who argue for an acceptable kind of divorce, we should surely wish to be allowed to consider context, near and far, in deciding the issue. Indeed, one does not have to go far to see that Malachi’s oracle is spoken with only a certain kind of divorce in mind. This fact, tied to our previous discussions of proper divorce, places the burden of proof back upon those who would argue against all divorce. They still lack a text.

I hold, with most scholars, that the problem facing Malachi was a complex one.¹⁹³ First, there were some people who had broken God’s covenant (presumably the Mosaic at Deut. 7:3) by marrying women of the land (2:12).¹⁹⁴ This is a repetition of the sin mentioned in Ezra and Nehemiah, though we do not know the exact relation in time of the Malachi events to those in the other books. Second, some of the Israelites had divorced their wives (2:14-16). It is not stated that only those who had married the foreign women had done this, and it is a bit unexpected to find the charges in the order they are presented in the text. We would have thought that the order of offenses would have been reversed: they divorced and then remarried. Probably, the prophet knew of cases of men who had married who had not divorced Hebrew wives, and of some who had divorced Hebrew wives who had not remarried foreigners. As stated, the oracle catches all classes of sinners!

In any case, some had divorced their wives, and the association of the two complaints suggests that they had intended to marry women of the land — doubly offensive. Indeed, the difficult verse 15 probably intends for us to draw this connection by alluding to Abraham’s refusal to divorce Sarah in order to take Hagar, a woman of the land, as his concubine.¹⁹⁵ In other words, the people of Malachi’s day have not been faithful to God as Abraham was; though he sinned by seeking to gain holy seed (Isaac) by the bondwoman (Hagar) he nonetheless remained true to God’s law by not putting away his lawful spouse (Sarah). By contrast, men of Malachi’s day had put away their legal wives in order to marry women prohibited by God’s law (Deut. 7:3).¹⁹⁶

In view of the context, namely, the unjustified divorce of legal wives, is it proper to suggest that all divorces are some species of treachery? Certainly not! Simply put, if divorce per se is treachery, then God is treacherous and Hosea is treacherous when they divorce their “wives” according to the biblical record! It is not that God hates divorce because it is treacherous but that he hates treacherous divorce. And the sort of divorce that is treacherous is, for instance, divorce grounded upon nothing more than the desire to be monogamously devoted to another woman.

Laney suggests that the oracular statement that such men have “covered their garments with wrong” may be a colorful way of underscoring the treachery of these divorces. He points out that in Ruth 3:9 and in Ezekiel 16:8, the prospective husband spreads his garment over the woman to show his intention to protect her.¹⁹⁷ To say that his divorce has covered his garment with wrong may mean that, whereas he was to cover the woman with his (unstained) garment, he has instead covered his garment with the stains of violence, the divorce being a violation of the woman’s basic rights and a sundering of the covenant.

It is at this point that we find our previous discussion of the man’s obligations in marriage underscored. Recall that I argued earlier that for a man to fail to provide for his wife was for him to rend the covenant. What is groundless divorce but the same rending of the covenant, albeit with the trappings of legality and the illusion of morality? To deprive a woman of her right to bodily support while keeping the marriage a legal entity is a sin. To divorce her is a legal sin. Both are treachery. Both negate the obligation of the man to live up to his vows. God hates all such treachery, and He has made provision for the women in such case: remarriage, preferably to the offender, who comes to his senses as a result of the oracle of the Lord, but to another man if he does not. To argue that she does not have the right to remarry has the burden of proof, insofar as the right to remarry is clearly stated earlier in the case of a woman deprived of what a husband should provide in marriage. Exodus 21:10 f., 26 f. state that right (Exod. 21:11).¹⁹⁸ Recall also that Deuteronomy 24:1-4 provided for the woman’s well-being by allowing her (the victim of divorce on insufficient grounds by a hardhearted husband) to marry another.

Though the text does not explicitly say so, it certainly implies that such divorce is adulterous. It is called treachery, and since it is treachery against the covenant partner, it may be presumed to be a form of adultery, as is any breach of the marital covenant.¹⁹⁹ The man promised to continuously care for this woman, and now he has, by legal writ and without legal grounds (i.e., his wife’s sexual adultery), declared that he will no longer do so. He has been unfaithful, and adultery is marital unfaithfulness.²⁰⁰

Finally, we note that semantic confusion is once again possible in these verses because some translators have chosen to speak of the treacherously divorced woman as a companion and covenant partner, in spite of the clear fact of prior divorce. This gives the impression that, after legal divorce, some legal relationship or existing covenant continues. This in turn gives rise to the idea that marriage continues in spite of divorce. A careful look at Malachi 2:14, however, reveals that those who translate 2:14 “though she is your companion and your wife by covenant,” have not rendered the Hebrew in the preferred way. First, remember that in Hebrew verbs are not so much concerned with point of time as with completeness of action. Second, as in Greek, it was common for the writer to omit verbs altogether when the action had the effect of the English present tense. Though they had a particle that could convey the idea of the present, they more often than not omitted it and expected the reader to supply it. Third, supplying the present tense in a verbless clause is inappropriate if the previous clauses convey the sense of another tense. Fourth, the Hebrew “perfect” (i.e., completed action) is as close to the English “past” as one could expect. Though the action could have ongoing implications, the stress is on the fact that the action is finished.

Combining these grammatical elements and applying them to the text of Malachi 2:14, we note that “is your companion and your wife” is a verb-less clause, without the particle, but in the context of a prior perfect (i.e., “you have dealt treacherously”). Thus, the translation of choice would be “though she was your companion and your wife.” This matches quite nicely with the concept of relation subsequent to divorce in Hosea 2:2: “she is not my wife, and I am not her husband.”²⁰¹ Divorce ends the legal relation; hence it is not strictly correct to speak of the former partner as still one’s companion or wife.²⁰² Divorce (whether morally grounded or not) signals the end of the covenant.²⁰³

Who is the One Who Hates?

The above adopts the traditional interpretation that God is the One Who hated the divorce discussed in this passage. However, some scholars argue that the Hebrew here actually identifies the divorcing husband as the one who hates. What he hates is obviously not the putting away, because he is the one who does it. Rather, he hates his wife, and puts her away for that reason. Westbrook argues that the text discloses a subjective reason for the divorce as contrasted with one which was based in Law. On this view the passage does not say “I am God, I hate divorce”. Rather it should translate the two finite verbs literally: “For he has hated, divorced … and covered his garment in injustice.” Westbrook goes on to argue that not all divorce is condemned by this, but only unjust divorce based in hatred of the wife. (193a)

Personally I favor this translation. Note that it retains the Divine rejection of treacherous divorce, while even more explicitly identifying the nature of the divorce which is rejected as treacherous and unjust. It fits nicely with our prior explanation of Deuteronomy 24:1-4, insofar as the man has not legal ground. Erwat debar is here clarified as hate—rejection which is not founded on adultery. This passage also leads into Jesus’ teaching identifying the man who ends his marriage without porneia as hard-hearted (Matthew 19:8). And, since the sin in question relates only to the divorce without grounds, and not to remarriage, it leads in to our view that all of Jesus’ teaching is directed to the same point. The remarriage may be a consequence of or even the reason for the unjust divorce, but the sexual act of such a new marriage is no more a sin in itself, than would have been that of an Israelite marrying a second wife in the days of Malachi.

¹⁴⁹   Lewis and Reinhold, Roman Civilization, pp. 48 f.

¹⁵⁰   It is probably not proper to see in God’s response to David’s adultery with Bathsheba a relaxation of the adultery penalties per se, for that event was an unusual case. David could only be executed by a government official beneath himself in the hierarchy. This would probably lead to anarchy or some form of temporary chaos in the kingdom; therefore, God punished him by taking the life of his son by Bathsheba.

¹⁵¹   This, of course, ignores the interpretation of the Song of Solomon as an allegory of such a relation. At this point I do not wish to deny that but only to set forth the case without dependence upon such a questioned interpretation.

¹⁵²   For a similar analogy with a different starting point, read Ezek. 16:1 ff., where Yahweh is said to have married Israel, whom he had raised from an abandoned child of immoral parents. The betrothal theme in Ezekiel seems to speak of God’s relation to Israel dating from the entry into the land, rather than from the Exodus, but in the end, the main strands of the analogy are the same.

¹⁵³   I hold that Deut 6-11 is a comment in the stipulations section of the general obligation to be loyal to God. Cf. Kaufman, “Structure,” pp. 120 ff.

¹⁵⁴   Supportive here are a number of verses that speak of God as a “jealous God”: Exod. 20:5; 34:14; Deut. 4:24; 5:9; 6:15, Josh 24:19, etc. The discussion of marital jealousy was, of course, a matter of law itself in Num. 5.

¹⁵⁵   I shall have more to say about this interesting story and the principles it holds for the divorce discussion, momentarily. Interestingly, Laney, who admitted to me personally that he had not completely read this book in its first edition before he reviewed it in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society discovered the relevance of the incident of the Gibeonites from a student (Jim Boyle. “Biblical Principles on Marriage, Divorce & Remarriage”, n.d.) between the writing of Myth and Laney’s contribution to Divorce and Remarriage; Four Christian Perspectives (so p. 27 and note 20 on page 52). Neither seem aware of the differences between Joshua and Ezra (and 1 Cor. 7).

¹⁵⁶   1 Chron. 1:25. We know not the exact time of the writing of the 106th Psalm, but it reflects the same sentiment in its thirty-ninth verse It could have been penned at anytime from the days of David to the deportation of Judah though the latter is preferred in view of the clearer touch-points with captivity mentioned in the last two verses.

¹⁵⁷   It is not clear from the Hebrew exactly what went on in the restoration. I prefer the interpretation that Gomer, no longer under the protection of Hosea’s financial responsibility (cf. Num. 30), had fallen on economically hard tunes and had to sell herself into slavery to continue to support herself (cf. Exod. 21). Hosea, in turn, purchased her for himself off the slave block. This seems to make the most sense of 2:16, which has the husband telling the woman that, in the day when she is restored, she will call me “Ishi” rather than “Baali.” Since baali means “master” as of a slave being purchased, we can see now his immediate freeing of her to become his covenant companion (again) would result in his referring to himself, the same day, as her “Ishi,” or husband-companion.

¹⁵⁸   Francis I. Anderson, Hosea, vol. 24, The Anchor Bible (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1980), p. 220. Heth persists in holding this interpretation in his contribution to Four Christian Perspectives (p. 76). However, he offers no more proof of Anderson’s paraphrase than does Anderson. Simply, the Hebrew does not say “not living together.” It bluntly says, “She is not my wife, I am not her husband.” Anderson are engaged in eisegesis.

¹⁵⁹   Ibid., p. 221.

¹⁶⁰   Ibid, p 222.

¹⁶¹   So John Walton of Wheaton College, personal conversation 1/23/96.

¹⁶²   “The Prophet Hosea: God’s Alternative to Divorce for the Reason of Infidelity,” Journal of Psychology and Theology, Summer 1979, p. 133-34. Hereafter “Alternative.” He, in turn, is followed by the Feinbergs, Ethics, 457, note 447.

¹⁶³   Westerman, C. Isaiah. Westminster 1969. p. 223.

¹⁶⁴   Though it these oracles were probably written down in Judah after the fall of Samaria. See the NIV Study Bible, p. 1321.

¹⁶⁵   NIV Study Bible notes, p. 1014. Remember that the dates before Christ are higher the further away from Christ that you get.

¹⁶⁶   NIV Study Bible, p. 115.

¹⁶⁷   “Alternative” pp 136-39.

¹⁶⁸   Anderson, Hosea, 137.

¹⁶⁹   Ibid, 222.

¹⁷⁰   Anderson here appeals to Deut 24:1-4, which, I have suggested and argued earlier, refers to an innocent woman being put away.

¹⁷¹   Note here that the text simply says that she attributes those fields to her lovers, whereas 2:8 has already served us notice that these things came from her husband, without her knowing it!

¹⁷²   Ibid., p. 138.

¹⁷³   Ibid.

¹⁷⁴   Thus if a man murders another, he is known as a murderer subsequent to the crime, though he may not murder someone every day (or ever again). In a similar manner it is proper to speak of a divorced woman as an adulteress (if that was the grounds), though she actually bears no legal relationship to her former husband subsequent to the divorce.

¹⁷⁵   The reader should remember that Hebrew verbs do not, strictly speaking, express time/tense, but rather complete or incomplete action. The Hebrew “perfect” is close to our past tense, but could express action continuing into the present See the comment on Mal. 2:14 later in this chapter.

¹⁷⁶   When, I argue, the parallel story of Gomer speaks of her as being bought back as a slave by Hosea (cf. 3:2). It was subsequent to the buying back that Hosea restored her to her position as wife.

¹⁷⁷   Against this view, apparently Joel 1:8, where Judah is identified as a young woman who weeps for her husband—ba’al—though it is possible to see that book as being written subsequent to the onset of exile but before the ratification of the “new covenant” referred to by Jer. 31. If the later date of writing is presumed, then, again, the term might be taken to refer to the master of a slave girl who has been left desolate by the death of her master, i.e., Israel left by God, the offended Master, to her own devices. The Yahweh/Israel husband/wife analogy is made more difficult yet by the fact that Yahweh had with the sons of Abraham a higher covenant (the Abrahamic) that also bound Him unilaterally to union with the children of the “child of promise”—Isaac. Such a dual covenant has no exact parallel in the human marriage-divorce discussion, even though the Eph. 5 passage ties the husband to his wife by analogy to Christ’s relationship to the Church, which latter relation arises out of the Abrahamic covenant. In this latter case, there is no second covenant, and the stated analogy is entirely silent with regard to the matter of divorce, whereas in the Mosaic covenant with Israel—as we have noted amply earlier—the correspondence with divorce is explicit.

¹⁷⁸   TWOT, “lo„,” Vol. 2, p 463.

¹⁷⁹   Small, “Alternative”, p. 139.

¹⁸⁰   The separation theme is, of course, real elsewhere in Isaiah: 34:5 ff. speak of Israel being forsaken only “for a brief moment” Note that the situation in Isa. 34:3 reverses the clear facts presented in all the prophets and seemingly speaks of Israel as an innocent bride forsaken by a hard-hearted husband. Such is not, of course, the case; God is only trying to create sympathy on our part for the restored one, and to emphasize the happiness of the restoration. But that is not to deny that the forsaking was real and that it merited the metaphor of a full divorce. Remember that that “moment” was the seventy years of captivity! The moment was in God’s time, in which a “thousand years are but as a day.”

¹⁸¹   It is interesting that only Jeremiah 3:8 gives us evidence that an adulterous woman received a divorce writ. Certainly such a woman didn’t receive one before she was executed (when the law of execution was followed). One wonders why a writ was granted to a guilty wife when execution was no longer practiced, and finally when the Hebrews no longer had a right to execute (for being under foreign occupation). I have suggested above that the purpose of a divorce writ was not to protect the guilty wife, but to protect the innocent husband from claims that the relationship had not really ended.

¹⁸²   Heth (Divorce & Remarriage, p. 90) argues oddly that, “Ezra’s prayer seems to indicate further that ‘intermarriage’ had not yet actually taken place (compare Ezra 9:2 with 9:14).” This is most unconvincing. Ezra says, “Shall we again break your commands and intermarry with the peoples who commit such detestable practices? Would you not be angry enough with us to destroy us, leaving us no remnant or survivor?” But he also goes on to say a breath later: “Here we are before you in our guilt, though because of it not one of us can stand in your presence.” If they had not intermarried, they would not have guilt! Ezra simply employs figurative language which expresses his incredulity at what the people have already been doing. Consider the comment of a father to a son who has just been caught doing what he has been punished for before: “I just punished you for lying last week! Are you going to stand here and do it again?” Who would suggest that his words seem to indicate” that the lying had not yet taken place? If you need more proof that marriages had already taken place, consider the fact that Ezra 10:18 ff. state the names of priests who had intermarried. The list culminates in 10:44, which states: “All these had married foreign women and some of them had children by these wives.” No matter what term for “married” is used, it seems rather obvious that these relationships, some of which produced children, were real marriages. I believe that Heth’s sort of argument shows to what extent some scholars will go to make a text amenable to their preconceptions.

¹⁸³   There is some doubt as to the exact relation in time of the “separation” in Ezra 9 and 10 to that spoken of in Neh. 8, but I see no reason to deviate from the view that the Ezra passages predate Neh. 8 by some twenty years Cf., for example, John Walton’s Chronological Charts of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978), p. 71; or Keil and Delitzsch on Ezra f Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, reprint, 1973), p. 135. If this is correct, then we may presume that the Israelites who had preceded Ezra to Palestine already knew the Law requiring separation from the women of the land (Deut. 7:3 ff ). This is quite significant in that it shows that those who had intermarried had done so as an act of unfaithfulness, not simply out of ignorance.

Indeed “unfaithfulness” was precisely the charge brought by the peers of those who intermarried (Ezra 9:2). It will be crucial to understand this in order to properly analyze Paul’s admonition in 1 Cor. 7, which is often pictured as countermanding the position set forth by Ezra.

¹⁸⁴   Although it is true that this passage is most specifically referring to “fore-telling,” I feel that “forth-telling” would also be included under the heading of speaking “presumptuously” a word in God’s name.

¹⁸⁵  The sadness was real, and the trauma of losing a loved but illicit spouse and the incumbent problems involving the children of that illicit union are tragic. But God means business with regard to sin. The sadness was caused by the apostates’ sin, not by God’s righteous correction.

¹⁸⁶   Some have raised the question of whether or not the “marriages” spoken of in these chapters are real marriages. Heth/Wenham (1) suggest that Ezra’s language implies that he did not see real marriage as having occurred by 9:14; they agree with George Rawlinson that these relations were mere “illicit connections” (“Jesus and Divorce, in manuscript, p. 163—Heth resurrects this point in Divorce and Remarriage; Four Christian Perspectives, p. 89 f.) (2) ask how “could these Israelites have made a covenant with God (Ezra 10:3) to put away their legal ‘wives’ if it is true that Scripture portrays marriage as a covenant made between husband and wife in the presence of God? And finally, (3) suggest that Ezra’s prayer (9:5-15) indicates that the marriages had not yet taken place.

To this I respond (1) though the terms used by Ezra are not the normal ones for marriage and divorce, the terms do convey those ideas; and (2) there is no contradiction between the covenant to put away and the covenant to be faithful to their foreign wives, precisely because the marriages were not recognized by God. However, Heth/Wenham miss the mark completely by suggesting that because the “marriages” would be considered “invalid” in the religious sense, they were not marriages in a significant, legal sense. Ezra must have considered them “real” marriages because he speaks of the sin of the people as breaking covenant with God and of intermarriage with the people of the land (9:14). It is true that the main body of the Jews had not yet done as the apostates had, but what is the sin of the apostates that is identified? “Intermarriage.” He is asking if the people as a whole are going to make a practice of apostasy. Finally, (3) I see nothing in the prayer (9:6-15) that indicates that intermarriage had not yet taken place. Indeed, Ezra says that “we have forsaken thy covenant” (v. 10). These words are in the context of returned exiles (v. 9). In v. 14 Ezra is not saying that no one yet has intermarried, but asking if the rest of the body of the returned exiles are going to follow in the step of the intermarrying apostates. I do not see that Heth and Wenham have made their case.

Let us simply say that there were in the time of Ezra legally authorized marriages, that is, legal according to the prevailing legal codes that were illicit according to the Mosaic Law. The extent to which they were recognized by the people of the land was the very extent to which they should be ended according to the same law, because these “legal” unions were “illicit” in the eyes of God’s Law.

¹⁸⁷   Cf. the conclusion of Laney in his Myth, p. 42.

¹⁸⁸   Laney, Myth, pp. 40-41.

¹⁸⁹   Laney makes note of this fact, but makes no significant use of it in drawing his conclusions (Myth, p. 41).

¹⁹⁰   This tendency on their part is one of the more aberrant implications of the “Old Dispensational School” of C. I. Schofield and L. S. Chafer There are newer and better forms of Dispensationalism. Cf. C. C. Ryrie’s Dispensationalism Today (Chicago Moody, 1959).

¹⁹¹   Steele and Ryrie, Meant, p. 67.

¹⁹²   Laney, Myth, p. 48. I believe that God’s attitude toward improper divorce is summed up here, but, of course, Laney is referring to any divorce.

¹⁹³   One of the best treatments of many issues on this passage is that offered by Beth Glazier-McDonald in her “Intermarriage, Divorce, and the bat-’el nekar” JBL Vol. 106, No. 4 (December 1987), pp 603-611.

¹⁹⁴   The text is somewhat open to interpretation on the question, Does “has married the daughter of a foreign god” necessarily refer to real marriages? It is usually granted that this was the case, because of that sin being deal with by Ezra who lived around that time. But Malachi could have been written a bit earlier. Andrew E. Hill (Malachi: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 25D. New York: Doubleday, 1998) places it a closer to 500 (thought without any real strong evidence). If Hill is right, then perhaps Malachi’s oracle was a warning unheeded.

¹⁹⁵   I prefer this translation to one that makes Adam the object of the allusion—so Laney (Myth, pp. 47,48), since the appeal to Adam would have been far less convincing than an allusion to Abraham, the Father of Israel. Herbert Wolf, in his commentary Haggai and Malachi (Chicago: Moody, 1976), pp 93,94, agrees with me. Joyce Baldwin, in her Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, disagrees, but notes that the one I accept is the preferred interpretation of the Jewish interpreters ([Downers Grove, 111. Inter-Varsity, 1972], p. 240). John Walton, of Wheaton College, has pointed out to me that the Hebrew that stands for “that one” is used of Abraham in Isa. 51:2 and Ezek. 33:24. I cannot understand Baldwin’s comment that to think of Abraham as the referent weakens the prophet’s “main case” (Baldwin, p. 240), except to suggest that she has herself missed the prophet’s main argument at this point. She has the prophet arguing for the sanctity of the initial family. I see the prophet as arguing for national purity respecting covenantal faithfulness, i.e., husband-wife loyalty.

¹⁹⁶   It is also likely that these men were taking the women as full wives, not as slave/wives as Abraham did. I have already suggested this as a way to harmonize several apparently divergent Mosaic laws—cf. chap. 2.

¹⁹⁷   Laney, Myth, p. 48.

¹⁹⁸   We shall see that the principle involved here is properly expanded by the Apostle Paul to cover desertion (1 Cor. 7:15).

¹⁹⁹   See the more detailed consideration of this subject in Appendix D.

²⁰⁰   I do not wish to quibble over semantics. Adultery is most properly a term that implies the unfaithfulness and treachery to a wife’s vows. But I feel that I have adequately shown that men who break their covenantal vows to their “husband:” Yahweh, deserve the term adulterer. A man who vows before God that he will provide for his wife, and then breaks that vow, is justly considered an adulterer toward God, and it is but a small jump to calling him an adulterer toward his wife. But I admit that the text of the Old Testament does not explicitly so identify the sin of a man who unjustly divorces his wife. I believe that our Lord does that in his great Sermon on the Mount. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

²⁰¹   See the comments on that passage in this chapter.

²⁰²   It has been suggested that the Hosea and Malachi cases differ in that the former speaks of a well-grounded divorce, whereas the latter speaks of a groundless divorce. The inference drawn from this is that groundless divorces do not really end the marriage, and well-grounded ones do. But I find that unconvincing. Remember that the Law did allow a treacherously divorced woman to remarry (Deut 24:1-4). It surely would not have done so if she were still considered a bound woman. Sexual relations between bound women and men other than their husbands were always clearly identified as adultery, and the punishment was always clearly execution. (See chap 3.)

²⁰³   I do not mean by this that the divorce ends moral obligation to repent and reconcile But the moral obligation that requires the guilty to repent rests, not in the covenant of marriage itself, but in the deeper obligations of morality at large-for the Israelite, stated in the Mosaic Law. Hence it is proper for the guilty party to be identified as an adulterer or adulteress after the divorce and to say that they have in their, continuing adultery, broken the covenant with their God (e.g., Prov. 2:17). See my comments on the three levels of obligation in marriage at the end of Chapter 2.

I will also mention here an article by Westbrook, which I have not yet received, which, I am told, argues that the phrase “I hate divorce” is really a colloquial saying for “unjust divorce.” If Westbook is correct in this, my point is made stronger: Malachi speaks not of all divorces, but of treacherous ones only, when he speaks his oracle against Israel’s divorce practices in the Post-exilic period.

Teaching in the Sermon on the Sin
of Conspiratorial Adultery

(Matthew 5:32b)

The Teaching Itself:

“And, whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

Treatment of the second divorce saying in the Sermon (Matt. 5:32b) seldom exceeds a paragraph or two, even among scholars. It is usually seen as presenting the occasion for the adultery committed by the woman in the first saying. That is, she is caused to commit adultery when she remarries, which is presumed to be discussed in the second saying. But, as we have seen, the first clause is independent and makes perfectly good sense without recourse to the second saying, though not the traditional sense.

We began the last chapter by noting that the connective kai, cannot be made to mean “when.” I mentioned then that we would continue our grammatical considerations when we arrived at the second saying. That time has arrived.

It is worth noting that the second saying is introduced by the words kai os ean. This is an unusual construction peculiar in the New Testament to Matthew, found only in 5:32b, 12:32 and 18:5. In each case the noted phrase precedes a subjunctive verb, in turn followed by an indicative verb. The verbs are found in clauses, having a form grammarians call a conditional statement. The first verb is in a clause which shows some uncertainty as to whether or not the action will take place. The mode of the first verb, which expresses this hesitancy is called subjunctive. This clause is also called the protasis, because it sets a condition which must exist before the truth of the next clause will hold. The “next” clause is called the apodosis. In the case of each of the kai os ean phrases, the verb in the apodosis is in the indicative mode, which expresses a statement of fact. Thus in each conditional saying, if something might (were to) happen, then something will be true.

Translators generally choose “and whoever” to render these words, although “and if … ” captures the (third class) conditional construction a bit better, since the former treats the sentence like a simple relative clause, while the ean is a hallmark of the a third class conditional, which has the form of “and if.”²⁹⁹ A consideration of the similar constructions in chapters 12 and 18 to not suggest to us that the “kai” should be interpreted as if it were a “when.” Additionally, the fact that the protasis of the saying introduced by the kai os ean phrase is in the subjunctive is further evidence that the second saying is not to be seen as causally interpretive of the first (she is caused to commit adultery when she remarries). If the traditional interpretation of the second saying claims that it give us the occasion of the adultery of the first. Such an event as the remarriage of a divorced woman would be expected to be in the indicative mode, the mode of positive assertion. This would be the case if the second saying began with a temporal clause introduced by a conjunction other than kai, such as oti (definite as to time) or otan (indefinite as to time). The subjunctive’s hesitancy seems an odd way indeed to provide the necessary situation in which the point of the first saying is to be made. In a bit we will ask why exactly the subjunction was chosen at this point in the antithetical rebuke of Jesus, but before we do that, we should look at the standard interpretations of the second saying.

Interpretations of What it Means
to Commit Adultery in Marrying a Divorcee

As this portion of the verse reads in most translations, it seems to be saying that any man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery with her. In spite of the seeming obviousness of this interpretation, there are several views that scholars have taken of this saying.

Remarriage Only Stigmatizes

The View Explained

In the previous chapter, we considered the work of the Lutheran Greek scholar, R. C. H. Lenski. We noted his theory that the woman of saying one (Matthew 5:32a) is innocent, but stigmatized. We did not rule out the possibility of stigma, noting that on several occasions the Old Testament Law prohibited the defamation of a “virgin of Israel” (e.g., Deut. 22:19). However, we concluded that stigmatization was only a secondary meaning of the offense-phrase. It was perhaps enough of an issue to rule out the clearer active, “commits adultery against her” but not enough to unseat the preferable “causes her to be adulterized.”

Lenski continued his theory of stigmatization into the conjoined logion, interpreting its meaning by the translation “and he who shall marry her that has been released is stigmatized as adulterous.”³⁰⁰ He explained this view further by arguing that the participle (“she who has been divorced”) is both perfect and passive, conveying the idea both that this woman was put away and that this procedure is final. This idea, then, Lenski related to the preceding saying: the first husband was unjustly putting away his wife, and now the divorce is a completed fact.

Lenski further argues that the second husband is not the agent of the “adultery” but the recipient of it. Thus, just as the woman of saying a was not guilty of sin, but suffered it, the husband of saying b is not guilty of adultery, but only suffers it. What he suffers is then interpreted as in the saying about the woman. The man has not sinned, but only become stained with the same stigma as was previously described as staining his present wife.³⁰¹

The Stigma View Criticized

We may first ask if this view makes sense on its face. Whereas the sayings so far in this section of the Sermon seem to be identifying, as an offender, a man who thinks he is innocent, but is really guilty, Lenski would have us believe that though this second husband may be thought to be guilty, he is really innocent. Of course, it might be rejoined that the text indirectly identifies the divorcing first husband as the offender. But why then is the first husband not more clearly brought into the saying? In the first saying, the treacherous man is brought to the forefront. In 5:32b, it is the second husband who is at the forefront. And, again, such an explanation requires the sort of interdependency of sayings that we have argued the grammar does not support.

Clearly, the stigma view presupposes at least two points that, if they are not true, render the position incredible. First, the woman in question must be innocent of adultery. If the woman is guilty of adultery, then the man may well share in her guilt. Lenski makes much of the point that both the woman and her new husband have nothing in either of their histories to justify a charge of actual adultery. Second, the new husband cannot be the agent of the verb moikatai (“commits adultery”). If he is not the recipient, then how could he be said to suffer stigmatization?

Considering the first of these, we understand Lenski to find evidence for the innocence of the woman in a combination of the tense and voice of the participle and the relation of the second logion to the first. The completion of a divorce procedure against her in saying B is identified with the process of divorce underway in saying A. The hypothetical innocent woman of the latter saying, then, is identified categorically with the woman of the former saying.

All scholars will grant Lenski that the participle is perfect as to tense. Most will grant that it is passive in voice. Many will agree that there is a relationship of identity between the women of the sayings. For my part, I question whether the participle is passive and deny that there is any necessary identity between the principal women of the sayings. I offer the following reasons:

The relevant participle, apolelumenan, being in the perfect tense, could be either passive or middle in voice. Most translators assume the passive, but there is no reason this has to be the case. The form is the same in either case, and the context has to determine which is meant.³⁰²

Were the voice middle, the whole interpretative situation would be changed for Lenski. If middle, the woman would, in one manner or another, be implicated in the divorce process that has been completed. The nature of her involvement would depend on what sort of a middle it is, for there are three major concepts that may be involved in the middle: reflex, intensification, and reciprocity. Of the three, we may rule out the last, as it only occurs with plural subjects. An intensive middle underscores the producing agent rather than the agent’s participation. The reflexive middle, which is the nearest to the basic idea of the voice, refers the result of the action directly to the one who did it, with an emphasis upon that person’s participation in the action. The following middle-translations would then be possible:

Reflexive middle: “she who has divorced herself”

Intensive middle: “she herself who has divorced”

In either case, the point to be noted is that the woman has been not a passive object, but the causal agent. Lenski’s interpretation cannot stand a middle.

But is it middle or passive? The context decides, but the near context could abide either. It could be the woman of the preceding clause (passive), or it could be a woman, who, like the sinning divorcer of the first saying, has herself ended her marriage (middle). The issues become complex.³⁰³ Were the text to have stressed the woman by using a definite article, “the”, instead of merely putting the participle in the feminine singular, we would almost certainly have a grammatical indicator for tying this saying with the first and identifying this woman with the treacherously divorced woman in the first saying.³⁰⁴ But the article is missing. This is just “a” woman.³⁰⁵ At this point, let us simply say that Lenski may be leaning on a broken reed if he depends on the voice of the participle.³⁰⁶

Matters go from bad to worse when one considers the second assumption: the grammar of the crucial verb “commits adultery” (moikatai). Lenski insists that this verb, like the infinitive of the previous saying, is passive-that the second husband is the recipient of its action, not the cause. Lenski is surely in error. Though “causes her to be adulterized” (moikeuthanai) in the preceding saying can only be passive (being in the aorist), “commits adultery” (moikatai) in this saying, being in the present tense, has a form that can be either passive or middle. However, there is the added factor that the verb in question is deponent.³⁰⁷

A grammatical reminder may be helpful. A deponent verb, though middle or passive in form, should be translated as an active in function. Deponent verbs are verbs whose active form has been laid aside in preference for the middle. The form changed, but the function did not. Following the grammar book, then, we would not side with Lenski, because the verb is deponent. Thus, the verb should be translated “he is committing adultery.”³⁰⁸ This makes Lenski’s interpretation impossible. If the second husband is the agent of the verb, then the only way stigmatization can still be argued would be for the second husband to stigmatize an already guilty woman! It seems useless to even consider stigma as a secondary concept.

“Actual” Adultery Views

If Lenski’s idea of mere stigmatization is inadequate, the only reasonable alternative is that actual adultery takes place when the remarriage occurs. But to say this does not solve all the interpretative problems. There are at least three major variations to this category (at least two of these are liable to variation themselves).

The No-Remarriage View

The View Explained

One position goes beyond the basic statement by absolutizing the prohibition. It says that all remarriage is prohibited by this saying.³⁰⁹ The logic behind this expansion seems to be the following: remarriage is denied the divorced woman because the consummation of the second wedding defiles her bond with her first husband. (The presumption here is that the marriage bond is unbreakable, and the first union still intact.) Moreover, if she is still bound to her first husband, he must still be bound to her. If he is still bound to her, then he too is not free to consummate a relationship with another.³¹⁰

The assumption here in the case of the husband is that polygyny is immoral.³¹¹ This is a questionable assumption, given biblical passages up to this point in the text, i.e., considering all prior revelation.

This no-remarriage view does not require any relationship between 5:32a and 5:32b. Generally, this interpretation is given in the context of such verses as Luke 16:18a and supported by the idea that for a man to divorce his wife and marry another is adultery.

The View Criticized

Concerning the support of this interpretation by verses identifying a divorcing and remarrying man as committing adultery, I shall withhold criticism until we analyze Luke 16:18. Instead, we here turn our attention to the two basic assumptions of this position: first, that a continuing bond is the only way to explain how the man can be said to commit adultery with the divorced woman when they marry and, second, that polygyny was immoral impermissible when the verse was written.

Taking the last first, we note that, if polygyny was morally permissible when the verse was written, then for a divorced man to marry again would not have been immoral per se. After all, he could simply have married the second woman alongside the first and been guilty of no offense. Only if polygyny was immoral can this view make way from the text of Matthew 5:32b alone.³¹²

In line with what I have argued before.³¹³ I would contend that in the time when this verse was written (if not spoken), polygyny was understood to be morally acceptable (and not just by the Pharisees)—the Scriptures gave it moral sanction by implication in the fornication and levirate regulations. Moreover, one must understand that if this point is conceded, the argument that a continuing bond exists between the husband and his first wife is rendered irrelevant. The morality of polygyny implied that a man may have more than one “one-flesh,” covenantal relationship at a time. The divorced man may be faulted for the divorce of his first wife, but he cannot be faulted simply for marrying another. It is not clear that the logic of this verse alone requires us to include male divorces in the condemnation of remarriage.

If we are correct in this criticism, then we are back to the basic position: divorced women may not remarry. And if expansion of the saying (to men) is out, perhaps some form of limitation could further clarify the prohibitions here.

The No-Remarriage-for-the-Innocent View

The View Explained

The no-remarriage-for-the-innocent view, exemplified by Murray, is a part of the Erasmian position. The view holds that the union of marriage is not dissolved by the divorce, but by sexual infidelity. Erasmians hold that in 5:32b Jesus is presenting a saying limited to cases in which this bond has not been broken. The woman of that clause is the innocent woman of the preceding saying. Though legally divorced, she is still bound to her former husband. Until that bond is broken by an act of sexual infidelity on the part of either original spouse, each is morally obligated to remain celibate. The legalities of the second marriage no more justify its consummation than the legalities of the divorce did. The verse does not mean to inhibit the marriage of an “innocent” spouse once the bond has been broken by sexual infidelity of the “former spouse,” but proscribes a marriage in which an “innocent” spouse who has been treacherously divorced would become guilty of breaking their continuing bond by consummating a second marriage. Those guilty of groundlessly divorcing their partner are not for that reason guilty of adultery (that is a sexual sin), but would be guilty of adultery if they remarried (before their offended partner?).

Murray claims to have “good reasons” for limiting the logion to remarriage with a treacherously divorced woman. They are: first, guilty women are only the focus of a preceding parenthetical (except) clause, and second, the concern of the combined sayings is with the consequences of and wrongs entailed in unjust divorce. Jesus is silent on the status of the remarriage of guilty women, though He suggests that the force of the except clause may carry over and dissociate the second husband of such remarriage from the condemnation of adultery.³¹⁴ On the other hand, since this saying does not speak to the condition of disciplining divorcers (male or female), it is possible to teach that the innocent party in such cases is free to remarry. The reason for this is that the guilty party by the act of adultery has dissolved the marriage.³¹⁵

The View Criticized

Criticisms of the previous positions arise again. First, as noted under the discussion of the no-remarriage view, the morality of polygyny makes the egalitarian nature of this position suspect. To be most proper, it would have to speak of the innocent female divorcee. Second, as mentioned in the criticism of Lenski’s view, Murray’s presumption that there is an interpretive connection between 32b and 32a is questionable. His supposition that this woman is the innocent divorcee of 32a is wrong if the participle in 32b is a middle—thus rendering the woman the agent of the divorce and not the recipient of the former husband’s action. Third, I believe that Murray’s view is determined by his assumption that the marriage bond is broken only by sexual infidelity. I believe that assumption is ill grounded in the Scriptures. The divorce of the innocent woman breaks the promise of the husband to continuously provide for her (Exod. 21). To presume that the remarriage of such a woman is adultery flies in the face of Deuteronomy 24 in a way that not even a dispensational argument can explain.

Another problem arises for Murray’s view when he later admits that for a treacherously divorced woman to marry is adultery (Matt. 5:32b), whereas a deserted woman may marry without tainting her husband (1 Cor. 7:15). It would seem that if the “one-flesh” bond exists until broken by sexual infidelity (Matt. 5:32b, etc.), the deserted woman would not be free to remarry until her former husband remarried or committed fornication.

Murray argues valiantly to harmonize the two, trying to force Matthew 5:32b language solely into the category of 1 Corinthians 7:10-11, and not into any relation with 1 Corinthians 7:15. Remarriage for “putting away” by Christians is presented as a different item than “going away” in a mixed marriage. After all, does not Paul say that the two categories are different when he distinguishes between Jesus’ teaching and the matters discussed in 7:15?³¹⁶

Ultimately Murray’s effort is unconvincing. Unless some more significant distinctions between Matthew 5:32b and 1 Corinthians 7:15 can be given, it would seem that the disharmony will remain.

Seeing the no-remarriage-to-the-innocent-divorcee view as inconsistent and unlikely, we turn to a second variation of the limiting views.

The No-Remarriage-to-the-Guilty View

The View Explained

The essence of the no-remarriage-to-the-guilty view is that 32b prohibits the remarriage of a treacherous spouse, in this case the woman who divorced her husband. Since it permits the remarriage of an innocent divorced person, this view must deny that the marriage bond lasts past the divorce. Like the previous view, it would most likely argue that whatever moral obligation exists in marriage ends with the offense that determined the guilty party to be such. The most consistent statement of such a position would argue that, if no moral grounds predate the divorce, the divorce itself becomes such grounds. This is not to be construed as saying that the innocent party will always be the one divorced, for sometimes the innocent party will be a disciplining divorcer. Guilt is determined by the unfaithful (not necessarily sexually understood) action of one spouse. When the innocent party divorces as a discipline, it is to serve notice that the moral bond, which the spouse has broken, should be restored by a renewal of the covenant.

Such a view denies remarriage to the guilty party, not because some bond still exists, but because the guilty party has unfinished moral business, that is, repentance, including actions that are the appropriate “fruits of repentance.” If the guilty party was the divorcer, as in the saying at hand, then that party should not marry another person but seek the forgiveness of the offended former spouse. The appropriate “fruit” would be to restore the marriage by recommitting to the marriage vows, if the offended will and can take the offender back. To marry someone else while repentance and restoration is possible is evidence of continuing treachery, in the same way as thieves remain thieves until they provide restitution, or prove they are still thieves by fencing the property they have stolen.³¹⁷

The View Criticized

A common criticism of this view is that it presumes that the woman divorced her husband, a procedure not available to women in Palestinian society at that time.³¹⁸ But this criticism will not stand. First, Herodias did divorce Herod.³¹⁹ That would make such a statement relevant. Second, there is no doubt that Mark 10:12 includes the same point. We cannot deny the possibility of Christ here identifying the wife as a divorcer without denying the even more straightforward identification in Mark’s Gospel.³²⁰ The view’s interpretation of 32b harmonizes with Mark on this point. They are conceptual complements, each touching on a different side of the same issue: the remarriage of women who unjustly divorce.

A second criticism of this view is that it goes against the idea of an indissoluble moral bond that exists between marriage partners. If the view were further qualified to relate to guilty female divorcees(ers), then it would be criticized by positions that protect polygamy. However, if previous argument is compelling regarding the dissoluble nature of the marriage bond and the moral permissibility of polygamy, neither of these criticisms damage the position.

A third criticism against this view could arise out of comparison such verses as Luke 16:18a, Matthew 19:9, and Mark 10:11. How can this interpretation be harmonized with them? Some of them would not seem able to be harmonized. I will answer this criticism when we discuss those texts.

Beyond these criticisms, there are two questions to ask this position regarding its focus upon the second husband. Why exactly is he singled out, rather than the divorcing woman? And why, if her marriage bond is broken, is he hung with the tag “adulterer”?

The suggested answer to both is that the text at hand sees the second husband as an accomplice in the continuing rebellion of the guilty, perhaps even the cause of it. Several matters support this suspicion. In the first place, remember that the Sermon was preached to the disciples, who were probably mostly men; Jesus spoke to the majority of His audience. Second, remember that the question of the right to end the marriage (in re Deut. 24:1-4) was one primarily of concern to men, since few women divorced their husbands. In one sense this fit the Law’s plan for men to be the ones who led in family decisions. But this “lead” was a great responsibility, to be exercised in a manner designed to keep families together. “In the days of Jesus (and in most days of history), however, men were behind the disruption of marriage. Jesus is trying to rebuke such behavior by speaking against male lust, male treachery in divorcing, and male treachery in claiming a woman who should be going repentantly back to her husband.

This latter progression brings up two matters that may explain why the man is singled out in the remarriage saying, and that may help us see the reasonableness of this interpretation. One is logical, the other is historical. Consider again the connection between the three logia of Matthew 5:27-32. There is an interesting progression in the three cases in which men are guilty of adultery when they might at first seem to be innocent. The logical progression runs: thoughts of treachery with another’s wife, treachery to rid oneself of one’s own wife, and the treacherous claiming of the neighbor’s wife. Lust, treachery, and duplicity.³²¹ A complete set of evils. But this progression may have more behind it than logic and completeness.

To Jesus’ listeners, Galileans, the progression would sound like a comment on the daily news scrolls. The “buzz” was one of the most celebrated cases of contemporary immorality in high places: Herod Antipas. Remember the Herod incident? Luke 3 tells us that John preached against Herod’s marital sins (3:18) before Jesus was even baptized (3:21). Jesus’ Sermon certainly came after His baptism (cf. Matt. 3:13-17 vis-a-vis Matt. 5-7). The Sermon seems to have come near the beginning of His ministry with His disciples, as it lays down the ground rules of discipleship (Matt. 4:18-5:1). Thus, it is likely that the Sermon was preached while John was striking out against Herod, and it probably was preached in Galilee, Herod’s domain. Furthermore, the Pharisees were notoriously silent about the case. Their silence might imply to the people that Herod was not guilty of any other moral infractions in his married life then his infamous incest. Whereas John focused upon the incest, Jesus spoke against the less bizarre marital sins of Herod.

The false impression that lust, treachery against one’s wife, and treachery against one’s neighbor are somehow passed over by God because the first is covered by the heart and the last two are permitted by the prevailing laws must be corrected.³²² Herod’s antics were in the minds, if not the hearts of the people, and it is highly unlikely that Jesus’ hearers would have understood such teachings as these without some reflection upon the biggest story in the “daily newspapers.” We may presume that to some degree the Herod incident formed a background for the saying. Let us see exactly how the history and sayings could relate.

Looking at the combination of all three sayings that relate to adultery, a rather interesting progression appears:

1. 1. A man desires a married woman (5:28) Though that status is obscured by the fact that translators never choose it, context determines whether the woman is single or married. The context in this case is the word adultery. Since that term only relates to pledged females (wives or fiancés), “wife” is the preferable translation. Beyond this the text says nothing more to identify the woman lusted after, such as her relationship to the lusting male (including possible incest).

2. 2. A woman is divorced by her husband (5:32a). Though the text mentions the possibility of a valid divorce for porneia, the thrust of the passage is upon a man who divorces a woman unjustly.

3. 3. A man marries a woman who initiated a divorce that is final (5:32b). The definite article is missing so as not to force us to think of this as the treacherously divorced woman in 32a.

This series fits the case of Herod Antipas, who 1) lusted after Herodias, his brother Herod Philip’s wife. They joined in conspiracy against Philip and seem to have eloped (from Caesarea del Mare). At her insistence he 2) unjustly divorced his own wife (the daughter of the king of Petra) and then 3) married Herodias, whose marriage to Philip ended upon receiving permission from Rome. Josephus informs us, Herodias herself did the divorcing, not Herod Philip.³²³

The middle participle and the deponent passive verbs in this second saying of Jesus would seem to fit the historical facts nicely. Matthew 5:32b then reads: “And if someone marries a woman who herself has divorced he himself is committing adultery.” This fits the Herodias case precisely. The stress upon the man who marries such a woman would put the blame upon Herod even more than upon Herodias—the man being seen as morally responsible for her divorce. Those who think that this historical episode was not on the mind of our Lord, should consider, first that Jesus was aware of both the preaching career of His cousin, John, and as well as that of “that fox, Herod.” Second, the Luke 16:18 passage, considered below, shows that Jesus was familiar with the Pharisees’ failure to act in concert with John in the common stewardship of God’s previous revelation. And His comments there relate to divorce, not to incestuous marriage.

Of course, Jesus is not simply condemning Herod, but all who, like Herod, would aid in or instigate treachery against their neighbor. Then as now, it is usually the man who lusts, clears the way for his next love, and wrests the woman away from any prior commitments. And then more than now, few women (who were prevented from holding most jobs) would think of divorcing their husbands without having a new spouse waiting in the wings. In such cases, the “adultery” of the second husband is clearer yet. He was a party to the sundering of the first marriage—a clear instance of adultery according to the spirit of the Mosaic Law, though it might not be precise to speak of him as an adulterer until he actually took possession of her.

Even were he not to have sexual intercourse with her before the legal divorce, he would not be free from the condemnation of One such as Christ, who could easily see when prevailing law was being used as a cloak for evil by such a trick. To have finally removed a previous covenant (perfect participle) by legalities cannot fool God. The guilty parties are, in their remarriage, about the business of adultery.

But does this interpretation fit the grammar? Here we return to the matter that the protasis is in the subjunctive. I believe that the fact that women seldom initiated divorce led to the grammatical hesitancy in the saying. Our verse would then read rather literally, “and he, if she who has herself divorced, is marrying, he is committing adultery.” Smoothing the grammar it becomes, “and if he is marrying a woman who has herself ended her marriage (though that is somewhat unlikely), he is committing adultery. It is not that marriage for a man is improbable, but that a man would marry a woman who had initiated the divorce, since few did that in a patriarchal society. On the other hand, it may not have been that uncommon for a man to marry a divorced woman. I am not aware of figures on remarriage, but we do have the text of John’s Gospel, which relates that the Samaritan woman had remarried four times.³²⁴

But if it is unlikely for a man to marry a woman who has initiated her divorce, why make a saying about it at all? The answer, again, is that Herodias had divorced her husband, and Herod Antipas had married her. In other words, that which was unlikely according to Jewish custom, was still happening in the experience of Jesus’ hearers. The silence of the Pharisees on the subject implied that what Herod had done was acceptable because Herodias did, after all, have a legal writ. The verse emphasizes the guilt of the man, because, I believe, the man is assumed to have played a primary role in the woman divorcing her husband. Why would she place herself in economic jeopardy by divorcing unless she had a “golden parachute” with which to save herself once she was cut off from her husband’s provision?

Notice also that this provides a nice parallel to the first saying. There the husband destroys his own marriage trusting in the divorce writ he produces by which to cut off his innocent wife. In the second he trusts in the divorce writ a woman has acquired for herself, by which she destroys her own marriage. Both sayings, in different ways, express a rebuke to those who are involved in the destruction of marriage, trusting in prevailing legalities rather the revealed moral necessity of covenant keeping.

Believing that Jesus is condemning those who, with their neighbor’s wives, are treacherous against their neighbor, I do not agree that 32b is “unqualified.” Jesus is not interested in introducing new legislation that prohibits the remarriage of every divorced female. Such an idea would contradict the essence of Deuteronomy 24 and Exodus 21, both of which protect the abused wife by granting her freedom which does not exclude remarriage. The interpretation that any remarriage is adultery or that remarriage to an innocent divorced woman is adultery is not a clarification of the law; it would annul several of them, and that is something Jesus specifically said He was not going to do (Matt. 5:17 ff.).

But this may not be enough qualification. If the concern of the saying, and of the Law that it seeks to clarify, is to promote the continuation of valid (first) marriages and to prohibit subsequent marriages that inhibit restoration, what do we make of a case in which the “guilty” divorced woman has seen the error of her ways and sought to return to her husband, only to find that he is unable or unwilling to take her back? Since the thrust of the saying is to satisfy moral strictures, not simply live up to mystical, ontic unions, what would Christ say to such a woman? Unfortunately we do not have an instance of this, but I suggest that He would not bind such a one by such a saying as this. For the saying is not designed to prohibit the marriage of the “subsequently” innocent (i.e., repentant woman) but of the “continually guilty.”

My point here arises from general principles of Christian ethics, which we will consider in greater depth when we look at the context of the Matthew 19 divorce legislation.

Conclusions Concerning Jesus’ Teaching in the Sermon

The teaching of Jesus on divorce/remarriage in the Sermon should be understood in its proper perspective. Insofar as the subsequent words of Jesus on the subject are only supplemental to the Sermon, and uttered in spontaneous dialogue with His opponents and disciples, we must suspect that the positions set forth in the Sermon are topically complete when understood in the context of the Law and the Prophets. We have focused upon the Sermon sayings without recourse to the later ones precisely for this reason, while not expecting the later sayings to be in the slightest contradictory to what has been said to this point.

To sum up the “academic” words of Christ, we could say that He affirms the Old Testament teaching that covenant breaking as treachery (Mal. 2). Treachery in the heart is adultery. Treacherous divorce is a species of adultery. Treachery fulfilled in remarriage is adultery. Just not doing it in bed will not fool God. Just because the prevailing laws say a writ of divorce ends (moral) responsibility to the first covenant does not mean that God will fall into line. The prevailing laws and teachings be damned. The received teaching of the Old Testament is that divorce without grounds is treacherous. The only proper use of divorce is as a discipline for actions that by their nature breach the essentials of the marriage covenant. Since that is so, the man, who has pledged to provide for his wife, has committed adultery against his wife by divorcing her, has publicly spoken his treachery. No remarriage need take place for this adultery to occur, and Jesus mentions none nor alludes to none in Matthew 32a. Further, since divorce is only to be used as a discipline, the watching public may well (falsely) suppose that the innocent woman was actually guilty. Thus, this man actually defames her with his own sinful acts—an offense specifically proscribed in the Law. In the first saying of the divorce couplet, Jesus is seeking merely to restore to its fullness the meaning of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 as further disclosed by Deuteronomy 22:13 ff. and Malachi 2:15.

Having said that groundless divorce is adulterous against the spouse in the case of the male, it is unnecessary to say it regarding a female, for any legal annulment of the vows is covenant breaking by definition. The woman who groundlessly divorces is also guilty of adulterizing her husband and stigmatizing him as guilty of breaking his vows to her. Those who don’t realize that the law is reciprocal on this point need only listen to the nuances of Matthew 5:32b, when Jesus speaks of a woman who has ended her own covenant.

In the second saying, Jesus wished to point out that her compliance with prevailing (Roman) law, which permitted morally groundless divorce, did not free her from the sin of adultery. She intended to break her vow of monogamy. That is why she divorced her husband—she wished to have relations with another. The spirit of the Old Testament should not be difficult to discern in such a case, but there would probably be a need to pinpoint the adultery of her partner in the crime of vow-breaking: the man who as a result takes her. This man, who dared not to take her while she was still legally married to her husband, trusted in the legal divorce to grant him the right to bed her. Jesus wishes to rebuke such trust. This point is the burden of the second saying.

We return, then to the point at which we began this chapter. The second saying is similar to the first insofar as both warn against the same sin: “legal adultery.” The Pharisees, abusing Deuteronomy 24:1-4, taught that a divorce writ ended moral responsibility. Two implications of this false teaching are:

1) that a marriage may be ended without sinning against the innocent spouse, as long as there is such a writ given, and

2) that as long as the woman desired is able to end her own marriage, and has a divorce wit to prove it, she is fair game to be taken.

Jesus rejects both ploys as the evil of covenant breaking. In such cases the divorce writ is merely a cloak that covers evil.

But in arriving at this conclusion, have we rejected our previous position that, marriage being essentially a covenant, a divorce ends marital obligation? If it is over, why cannot the guilty party remarry at will? I answer that the legal obligations are indeed over, but the moral obligation to repent still exists. The woman who does not repent and become reconciled with her husband is still an “adulteress” in the same respect that an unrepentant murderer is still a “murderer” even though the event is in the past. The second husband is in the process (present tense) of making himself an accomplice to his new wife’s continuing treachery to her past husband and, in all likelihood, was the adulterous target of the woman while her first marriage was on the books. The second husband’s marriage to this divorced woman is part of an overall process of treachery against the first husband.

The thrust of Matthew 5:32b is similar to that of Luke 16:18. The latter passage also discusses adultery and remarriage; we turn to it now, to view it in its context.

Jesus’ First Confrontation with the Pharisees

(Luke 16:18)

The Customary Neglect of the Context

Most treatments of Luke 16:18 suffer from their failure to take the context into account. In fact, seldom is there a full treatment of this important verse in its own right. Usually it is appended in some way to the discussion of the Matthew 19/Mark 10 parallel. Laney, for example, has a whole chapter on the teachings of Jesus in Mark and Luke, but of the nine pages in that chapter, only one is devoted to Luke.³²⁵ Murray, who also ties Luke 16 to Mark 10, never mentions the former without also mentioning the latter. His discussion centers around showing that Mark 10 and Luke 16 complement Matthew by discussing the adultery of remarriage where there has been no fornication.³²⁶

Discontinuity with the Old Testament?

A Higher Teaching?

Those who do touch on the context differ quite radically over how it affects the passage. The old Pulpit Commentary, for example, argues that Jesus was telling the Pharisees that His teaching on the law of divorcement was more strict than the Old Testament—which earlier code will not pass away. It has Jesus saying:

“See,” He said, “the new state of things which I am now teaching, instead of loosening the cords with which the old law regulated human society, will rather tighten them. Instead of a more lax code being substituted, I am preaching a yet severer one. My law of divorce is a severer one than that written down by Moses.”³²⁷

Thus Jesus’ teaching is pictured as different from the Law. The Law permitted remarriage, but “grace and truth” proclaim it to be adultery.

The Rejection of the Mosaic Concession?

Laney offers a less radical approach to Jesus’ relation to the Old Testament doctrine. He suggests that Jesus simply distances himself from the Mosaic concession, harkening back to the original teaching of God in Genesis 2:24. This alternative, like that of the Pulpit Commentary, concludes that Christ is proscribing all remarriage.³²⁸

It is my suggestion that neither of these approaches to the context sufficiently grasps Jesus’ meaning or that of the Gospel writer. I understand Jesus as affirming the precise teaching of the Law and the Prophets, neither more nor less. To have done more or less would have undercut the strength of His criticism of the Pharisees, who themselves altered the meaning of the Law.

Continuity with The Old Testament

A serious consideration of the broader context of Luke presents, I believe, a picture of continuity rather than discontinuity with the Old Testament. Analysis of the structure of the Sixteenth and the (beginning of the) Seventeenth chapters of Luke reveal the following closely related units:

1. 1. The parable of the unjust steward, 16:1 -13

2. 2. The rebuke of the listening Pharisees, 16:14-18 (including the divorce saying)

3. 3. The parable of Lazarus and the rich man, 16:19-31

4. 4. The warning of the disciples, 17:1-6

Analysis of The Lucan Rhetoric

The Parable of the Unjust Steward

The first unit sets forth the teaching that some people are so committed to money and position that they would rob their master to ensure their own ease. The steward in the story is a man at a crisis point in his life. His past is that of a thief. Having been entrusted with his master’s affairs, he has mishandled them to his own advantage, often using his master’s goods for his own gain. When discovered, he simply changes his tactics and uses his remaining authority as a steward to give his master’s debtors a “cut rate.” Though this does not at first seem to be to his own advantage, it really is, insofar as those on the receiving end of his injustice to his master now are indebted to him for cutting their debt in half. All this shiftiness causes the steward’s master to comment on how worldly-wise and shrewd the man is. In other words, the wronged master “damns him with faint praise.”

The point of the parable is that some people will break trust to further themselves. Surely this is a point worth remembering for the disciples, as they are, in a sense, the stewards of God’s wealth, the kingdom and the gospel message (including the teachings of true discipleship). But the section that follows in the text shows that Jesus had a particular group in mind when He spoke of the unjust steward.

The Rebuke of the Pharisees

The second unit begins with the Pharisees laughing behind His back at Jesus’ teaching. Jesus exposes their conceit and identifies them as the very stewards about whom He has been talking. In the structure of the Gospel, it is clear that Jesus was all along thinking of the Pharisees. It was no happenstance, no coincidence, as if Jesus were thinking of some abstract steward and then the Pharisees mumbled themselves into the picture, thereby giving Him a chance to illustrate the principle. No, the Pharisees are the prime and intentional illustration. Jesus has “set them up,” so to speak.

Says Jesus in 16:15, “You are the ones I’m talking about” In what respect? They, like the unjust steward, love money more than they do their master. Who is their master, and wherein have they failed their stewardship? God is their master—they were supposed to be His spokesmen to His people. Their failure is identified as “justifying themselves in the sight of men.” Though this charge is doubtless general, could Jesus have some special instance in mind?

The Divorce Saying

It was at this point that Jesus became specific. “The law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John; since then the gospel of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.” What did Jesus mean by this remarkable saying? Well, clearly, John preached like a righteous steward. He was a true spokesman for the standard of God of Old. He served but one Master, whose message he proclaimed. We should expect from this part of the saying that Jesus is in some way suggesting that the Pharisees are a contrast to John. Jesus does not mean that John was the last to teach the righteous standard. Jesus himself continued to teach it, as the great Sermon clearly shows.

Jesus continued that the gospel of the Kingdom of God had been preached from the time of John. This is clearly a reference to His own ministry. But Jesus was not the first to teach about the kingdom, John was. Jesus does not mean to contrast himself with John, but to show that both John and He added to that standard of Law the clear message of the gospel. There is in the time designation no criticism or abrogation of the Law. No, that message (the Law, v. 17) will not pass away. The message of the “good news” of salvation presupposes conviction wrought by the preaching of the Law. The Pharisees understood that before gospel comes Law, with its requirement to be a servant to the Master himself. And they were willing to identify with the movement toward the kingdom. But they wanted to define that service in their own terms. They wanted to be thought of as the custodians of the kingdom, while personally rejecting the inner change of heart that is the hallmark of a true steward. They wanted the blessings of the kingdom without bowing to the obligations. They did not want to get into the kingdom through the door, but through the window. Jesus understood full well such thieving hearts, and so did John. The Baptizer had refused the likes of the Pharisees entrance into the antechamber of the kingdom, telling them to go back home and produce the fruits of righteousness (Luke 3:7 f.). The Matthean parallel notes that it was specifically to the scribes and Pharisees that John spoke these words (Matt. 3:7-11).

The object of faith must be Jesus as Lord, not simply Jesus as national Messiah. Just as the steward in the parable was willing to count his master as master without any commitment to allowing him the rights he was entitled to as master, so too the Pharisees were willing to muster to the service of the kingdom as long as it didn’t cost them anything. This is not the way to enter the kingdom. There is only one way to enter it: admit that Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that there is no other way in. To accept Him as the Lord and Savior requires first a recognition that we have sinned and that only by completely giving our rights of determination to Him will He give His life to us. But the Pharisees refused to acknowledge how woefully short of God’s standard—the very Law that was their stewardship—they had fallen. They sought to excuse themselves and thereby enter the kingdom through the window—or, as Jesus puts it, upon having the door closed in their faces, they sought to batter it down with their formal religious “clout.”

But what, we press, might be an objective evidence of their failure to be good stewards of the Law? Of course Jesus had identified a good number of things in the Sermon, but He takes the time to bring before them a charge of immediate note: a celebrated issue of divorce. Given the flow of His argument, for Jesus to have put any distance between himself and the standard of God, which was the overall stewardship in question, would have been for Him to have undercut the argument. How inappropriate for Him to have said that God said X, but I say X + 1. Such a personal display of ad hoc legislating would have been most out of place. Similarly, for Him to have said, “God gave you a cut rate from the time of Moses, but I am returning you to the pure teaching of Genesis 2:24” is, if anything, even more bizarre. It makes God to be the unjust steward who does not demand full rate.

I submit instead that Jesus was specifying one celebrated instance of the Pharisees’ poor stewardship when He pointed out their failure to accurately represent God’s teaching regarding the morality of divorce and remarriage. And rather than fish around trying to discern what in that regard He was referring to, I submit that the reference to John is doubly potent. For it had not been long before this confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees that John (the “just steward”) had lost his head for refusing to offer Herod a “cut rate” regarding the Old Testament Law on marriage. According to Luke 3:19, John rebuked Herod “on account of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and on account of all the wicked things which Herod had done.”

Note, please, that Luke 3:19 does not say that John rebuked him simply for the matter of incest.³²⁹ That was only a part of the wickedness that Herod had done in taking to himself his brother’s wife. As we noted earlier, beyond incest, Herod had divorced his lawful wife and contrived at the divorce of Philip by Herodias. About these sins, the Pharisees had been silent.³³⁰ Having doubtless themselves abused the divorce legislation in their own marriages,³³¹ and having not taught God’s doctrine of divorce—and having had this pointed out by Jesus in the Sermon—they proceed by their silence to side with Herod, God’s debtor, giving him a cut rate, that is, no public rebuke.

Concerning the two sayings themselves. The first says that anyone who is divorcing his wife (present active participle) and is marrying another woman (present active participle), is committing adultery (present active indicative). I believe that the key to understanding this verse is that the connective “and” (“and is marrying another”) functions to “introduce a result, which comes from what precedes”.³³² A narrative is being told: this man divorces his wife, and then, as a result of being free, remarries. This has the sense of saying, “Having given a divorce, he felt free to remarry.” Put another way, “He put his wife away in order to remarry.”

Notice how this second instance of Jesus’ teaching, omits the exception clause, leaving us to guess as to the cause of why the man chose to put away his wife. The only clue that we are given as to why he did so is in the narrative structure of events that, subsequent to the divorce, he married another woman. Is it not most natural to see in this narrative, that the man divorced his wife simply in order to devote himself to another woman? That was such a likelihood that it had been discussed in first legislation regarding the breakup of marriage, i.e., Exodus 21:10-11. There, a man set on marrying a second wife is required to maintain his first partner’s situation in life. He must provide the basics of life or allow his abused wife to go free. But what of the man who takes advantage of this legislation? As Matthew 5:31-32a had taught without reference to the frivolous divorcer remarrying, Jesus condemns legal treachery as moral adultery. Josephus makes it clear that the Jewish men of his day did indeed see themselves as having the right to put a wife away and let someone else care for her. The saw themselves as guiltless. But Jesus says that a man who divorces simply to marry another woman is guilty of adultery against his first wife. Writ or no writ.

The second saying, is connected to the first with “and.” This “and” functions quite the same way as the connector in Matthew 5:32, namely, it joins two similar sayings. It no more implies that the second saying is interdependent upon the first than the connector in the Sermon. The saying goes: “He who marries (present active participle) a one who is divorced (perfect middle/passive participle) from a husband commits adultery (present active indicative). Note the difference between the two sayings is that the first divorce is the simple action, while the divorce of the woman is more complicated. The perfect tense is the Greek tense of completed action. Three ideas are implicit here: 1) there is an act in process, 2) which comes to a culmination point, and 3) a resulting state of being. Or, more simply, the perfect tense emphasizes a completed state. I believe that the point here is that a man who involves himself with a woman whose marriage is in process of breaking up and comes to completion, is a party in that adulterous action. I think it natural to suggest that just as in the first saying the husband is guilty for having destroyed a marriage, namely his own, the second man is guilty for destroying a marriage, namely that of the woman whose divorce is a by then completed state. Given the option of interpreting her divorce as a passive or a middle, I take the middle, making it parallel to Matthew 5:32b. Especially in view of the situation that confronted the righteous steward, John the Baptist, i.e., the divorce of Herod Philip by Herodias in order to marry Antipas, this choice fits the historical context better than the more common passive. It also avoids conflict with the Old Testament permission of the innocently divorced woman to remarry all except a former spouse when there was a subsequent marriage. Why choose the less harmonizing option?

The difference between Luke 16:18b and Matthew 5:32b is not in the verb translated “divorce,” but in the verb for “marry.” Luke’s is a simple present active indicative, Matthew’s is an aorist subjunctive active. Is that significant? Hold that.

The Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man

The Lucan structure proceeds into the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. In view of the contextual discussion of the Pharisees’ commitment to riches, it is nearly impossible to miss the point that the rich man in the story is a deceased Pharisee. His whole life he manipulated God’s Law to his own advantage, to assure himself a place in Israelite society, and now he realizes that such riches, status and such friends as moral silence had bought could not result in his reception “into the eternal dwellings” (16:9). Upon finding that it is now too late to become a happy steward in the dwellings of the master (16:24 f.), he is stricken with regret and concerned with his surviving Pharisees brothers back on earth. He wants this Lazarus fellow to be sent back and warn his brother Pharisees that they must repent or they will end up suffering as he does.

In the story, Abraham tells him that even the resurrection of a man named Lazarus (or any other—Jesus, for instance) will not convince them that they should mend their ways. For their god is their position and their wealth, and they have already rejected clear evidence of how to avoid such a tragic afterlife. The message is in the Law and the Prophets. The living Pharisees knew that there was a Master, they knew the Law, but they rejected it. Theirs was an unpardonable sin, insofar as they had rejected God and sided with His adversary while possessing full knowledge and experience of the oracles and while denying the power of the Holy Spirit Who inspired the oracles.³³³

The Warning to His Disciples

In the fourth section, we see Jesus turning to His disciples and admonishing them to warn a stumbling brother. Just as John warned Herod, they were to rebuke the sinner. What? Herod, an Idumaean, a “brother”? Yes, in the sense that Herod claimed to follow the Law as a King of the Jews, he should be considered at least as much a neighbor as the “good Samaritan.” We do not see John so addressing Roman authorities. They made no pretense of obeying the Constitutions of Israel. But Herod claimed to be the Jews’ brother and to follow their standard. The disciples are told to rebuke such professors, for there is a chance that they will repent and become good disciples.

Of course, we know that in the case of John the Baptist and Herod it did not turn out like that. John, like the Lazarus in the story, was then in his grave, basking in the bosom of Abraham! By obliging them to rebuke the Herods of this world, was not Jesus sending them to their own graves? They can only cry: “Increase our faith!” And He seeks to bolster them by telling them that the requisite faith was not so much as they imagine, and that they should remember a faithful steward collects his reward after the work is done—just as John was then claiming his reward in Abraham’s bosom.

The Divorce Teaching Per Se

What is the result of all this contextual investigation? It is helpful to repeat something similar to what was said at the close of our discussion of Matthew 5:32b. The significance of determining whether or not the Herod incident is behind the sayings of Luke 16:18 is that, if it is, we do not expect the text to inveigh against all remarriage but only against such as we see in Herod’s case: treacherous remarriage. Herod’s divorce of his rightful wife was sheer treachery, condemned by Malachi 2. His complicity in the divorce by Herodias of his half-brother Philip involved him in the treachery of a covenant-breaking and adulterous wife. He was a partner with her in the sin of adultery, i.e., covenant-breaking. The language employed here is a simple third person present active indicative: “he is committing adultery.” There is no surprise here, no need for the use of the middle voice. The Pharisees knew they were giving a “cut rate” to Herod.

But what of the voice of the participle in the second clause? In Matthew we noted that the woman herself (middle) divorced the husband. Does not Luke imply that the woman was divorced, and is this not different from the case of Herodias and Philip? Actually, the voice of the participle here is exactly the same as that in the Matthew passage, that is, either middle or passive. I, of course, take it to be middle—implicating the woman as the treacherous divorcer, while stressing the complicity of the second husband in the first divorce by centering the saying upon him.

But, one may well ask, how is a person today to have known enough of all this background to realize that “all who” is really “all who [like Herod]”? A straightforward reading of the verse seems clear enough: no remarriage! Have we not turned the verse nearly on its head by limiting it to cases like Herod’s? To this one must reply, with Walter Kaiser, people always want to “skip the exegesis and go straight to the blessing.³³⁴ The references to John and the loyalty of Jesus to the Old Testament should have steered us in the right direction in the first place. Beyond this, the reader should have known that the interpretation of these verses as a proscription of all remarriages, though prima facie the proper one, has no support in the Old Testament, the very stewardship that Jesus and John sought so diligently to uphold, “every jot and tittle.” For one thing, a study of Malachi and the polygamy passages should have led one to understand that a man taking a second wife was not in itself a moral offense. How then could remarriage for a man be adultery, unless predicated solely upon the desire to limit himself exclusively with a new partner? Abraham took another woman to be his one-flesh partner, and he was not guilty of immorality for doing so. Why not? Because he did not in the process break faith with Sarah. So too, remarriage in itself is not a problem (at least for the Old Testament male). It all depends on the conditions upon which that second marriage is predicated: Was the divorce just or treacherous?

But we are getting ahead of ourselves here. The next chapter, on Matthew 19 and Mark 10, will return us to these crucial issues. But before I close this chapter, I need to stress again that Jesus is not in Luke 16:18 simply taking a shot at Herod Antipas or the Pharisees. The condemnation is equally devastating regarding anyone who, like Herod, remarries by a process of treachery. Or if you prefer, the passage warns against remarriage of or with the guilty party, especially as a part of that process. Thus, the traditional “Erasmian” interpretation, which sees this text as not addressing the case of the innocent divorced person, is vindicated. However, rather than coming to that conclusion by saying that the verse states a general rule and pedagogically ignores the exception, I am saying that the text more directly rebukes the divorce by the guilty party.³³⁵

²⁹⁹   It is also possible that the construction at hand “kai … ean” introduces a “concessive clause.” That introduction would be rendered “even if.” What stands against this is the interposing of “os” between the kai and the ean, although such a splitting is so rare (found only these three times in the New Testament) that it is hard to state with assurance that this could not be a concessive. The translation of a concessive, according to Chamberlain is “even if,” though R. Saur of Moody Bible Institute regards “although” as a better rendering. Either of these renderings is counter to the traditional translation and interpretation of the relation of the two sayings of Jesus. “Even if” or “Although” both direction attention to a difference between the first saying and the second.

³⁰⁰   Lenski, Interpretation, p. 230.

³⁰¹   Ibid, pp. 234 f.

³⁰²   The problem of knowing which voice Jesus intended would not have occurred to his listeners, since Aramaic-which we presume Jesus spoke-has no middle voice to confuse with the passive. He would have conveyed his point with a pronoun like himself. Aramaic was not the vehicle that God wanted to use to speak to the Roman world, and we must wrestle with the Greek.

³⁰³   Although the middle is used less often in Greek, the deponent passive or middle moikatai (“commits adultery”), in the same verse, conveys the sense of an active or middle. Further, the deponent apolusasa tied to the pronoun (“her”) in the potentially parallel clause in Mark 10:12 yields something very much like a middle: “her, the one having dismissed.” The more obvious parallel in Luke 16:18b is not helpful, because it uses exactly the same term as in the text before us.

³⁰⁴   This is yet another reason to disconnect the two sayings.

³⁰⁵   Nor does it help to look for “a” person in the first saying, since both the divorcer and the divorcee have the definite article.

³⁰⁶   I shall return to this matter later to argue more forcefully from context that the middle is the correct alternative.

³⁰⁷   Moikeuthanai, on the other hand, comes from the verb moikeuo, which is not deponent, thus permitting Lenski’s and my previous consideration of moikeuthanai to be passive.

³⁰⁸   Thus, all Lenski’s attempts to substantiate the form as passive (or middle) are useless. Murray, who replied to Lenski, argued for the middle voice. His arguments support the concept of the verb as deponent, though he does not speak to that point directly. Murray, in voicing his opposition to Lenski, strongly objects to interpreting the verb form as a passive, choosing instead to identify it as a middle. To support his position, he cites similar verses, some of which employ exactly the same verb form, which clearly show that there is adultery in remarriage (Matt 19:9, Mark 10:11; and in the LXX: Jer. 3:8; 5:7; 7:9; 9:1; 23:14); he insists that the verb intends “active participation in the sin of adultery” (Divorce, p. 23). Although some of the verses chosen by Murray would seem to imply that active participation comes only when the woman is guilty already (cf. the passages in Jeremiah), his contention seems well grounded when it comes to the Gospel usages of this particular verb form. A fair consideration of all the instances seems to reveal without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is employing the more rare form for the purpose for which it was created: emphasis. This man who marries this woman is himself committing adultery.

³⁰⁹   I presume that this position would be held by Heth/Wenham, e.g., Jesus, p 135. They do not spend much time on this part of Matt. 5:32. They make two incidental comments about clause B, and call it an “unqualified conditional” statement Jesus, (pp. 135,223, n. 71). Elsewhere (p. 50), they seem to agree to call it an “unconditional statement” But I suspect that this is just a slip. The former is correct. They criticize the NEB and the NIV for translating 32b in a manner that identifies the woman of clause B as the guilty woman of clause A, thereby limiting the condemnation of remarriage to that class of divorced women.

³¹⁰   Though it is in a section of criticism of the Erasmian view, the following seems to be a statement of Heth/Wenham’s own position: “For, if the woman cannot remarry she is not technically divorced, but separated. The marriage bond with her husband still exists: that is why remarrying a divorced woman is adultery (5:32b). Thus her former husband is really becoming a bigamist if he takes a second wife since the marital bond with his former spouse has not been dissolved” (Jesus, p. 50).

³¹¹   They comment of the Erasmian view: “[To suppose] that the divorced adulteress is refused the right of remarriage, but the innocent husband may remarry (= Erasmian view) … is effectively to allow polygamy!” (Heth and Wenham, Jesus, p. 50).

³¹²   Believing biblical polygamy to be moral, we can see why, as Robert Gundry correctly notes, “Matthew writes nothing about the question of the remarriage by the husband who has divorced his wife for unchastity” (Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982], p. 90). Of course not; polygamy presumed the right of a husband to take another wife. But I do not agree with him when he immediately and boldly states that “Luke gives an unambiguous negative answer” to the question of the man’s right to remarry. See chap. 7 on this point.

³¹³   Chap. 2 and Appendix B.

³¹⁴   Murray, Divorce, p. 26.

³¹⁵   Ibid., p. 42.

³¹⁶   Ibid, pp. 70-72.

³¹⁷   Though in the illustration chosen here there is no exact parallel, because there is a sense in which the body of the guilty remarrier is no longer the property of the former spouse. Divorce is somewhere between then and death, for which there cannot be restitution.

Elements of this position are the most likely interpretation of some practices in the early Church. (See Appendix F.) Those Fathers consistently insisted upon disciplinary divorce—they did not see it as disrupting an ontological and especially a moral bond. They saw the refusal to so divorce as a moral lapse. Thus, they must have felt that this sort of bond was broken by the offense. Second, in the clearest cases, Justin Martyr, for instance, it is evident that the reason for inhibiting the remarriage of the divorced parties is to facilitate the repentance of the guilty. This expansion goes beyond the text before us, but they used others to support it.

³¹⁸   See the point made by Gundry, Matthew, p. 91.

³¹⁹   Even if the divorce was not in a Jewish court, that fact is unimportant.

³²⁰   I do not see adequate reason for denying the genuineness of the latter dominical saying.

³²¹   The Old Testament, of course, condemns all three. Lust, As a man thinks in his heart, so is he (Prov. 23:7) Divorce. Let no one deal treacherously against the wife of your youth (Mal. 2:15). Remarriage: She goes from him and belongs to another—harlotry (Jer 3:1-11).

David lusted and wrested from Uriah his rightful wife. There was no reason to force Uriah to divorce her, because David got rid of Uriah by a different kind of treachery—death (2 Sam. 11). About all that can be said in David’s behalf is that he committed no treachery against any other of his wives in the process!

³²²   Though it is doubtful the Pharisees would have verbally supported such an impression, we must remember that the teaching Jesus wished to correct may in this case have been a matter of Pharasaic omission rather than public teaching. Note that the “you have heard” is missing from this combined saying.

³²³   Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 18.5.4.

³²⁴   John 4:17.

³²⁵   Laney, Myth, pp. 51-60.

³²⁶   Murray, Divorce, pp. 43-54.

³²⁷   Luke, vol. 16, The Pulpit Commentary, ed. H. D. M. Spence and Joseph S. Exell (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950), p. 65.

³²⁸   Laney, Myth, pp. 58-60

³²⁹   This in disagreement with Hoehner’s comment to that effect in Herod Antipas: A Contemporary of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1972), p. 138 n.

³³⁰   Josephus, for example discusses the Herods without ever condemning Antipas for any of these non-incestuous sins. He is clearly more concerned with Herodias divorcing Herod Philip than with her remarriage to Herod Antipas. Antiquities, Book 8, 5:4. This is similar to his condemning language concerning the earlier case where a Jewess, Salome had divorced her husband, Costobru, according to Antiquities, Book 15, 7:10 … “female crimes against the male”!

³³¹   Again, consider as an example the clearly Hillite position of Josephus, himself a Pharisee, in Antiquities, Book 4, 7:23, where any cause at all is a basis for Jews divorcing their wives, resulting in their freedom to remarry, as long as they had received a divorce writ from their husbands.

³³²   Bauer, “Kai”, meaning 2f.

³³³   Incidentally, such analysis reveals that this parable is a “prophetic parable” for John’s Gospel relates that God, in his ever-wooing grace, did in fact send them a departed one named Lazarus to serve as a warning of their pending fate. But according to John 11:45 f. they only wished to send Lazarus back to his grave, in order to preserve their “place” in the nation. How desperately sad!

³³⁴   Heard often in classes at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School of Deerfield, III., 1970-72.

³³⁵   To be more specific, I would add that the condemnation is of the guilty party who has not attempted to reconcile. I do not believe that the text means that a guilty party may not remarry if the “innocent” party refuses to reconcile. The passage clearly deals with a process of divorce to marry another. There is no thought here at all of a guilty party who has tried to reconcile, has been unable (for one reason or another) to have the marriage restored, and has subsequently found a new partner. I see no prohibition here of that sort of remarriage. Remember that the paradigm case of restitution is God and Israel. Israel, the guilty party, should have come to their senses and sought reconciliation to God. But God would never have turned them away if they had! Human spouses, alas, show how unlike God they are in this respect. Those “innocent” parties who are so inclined should take the parable of the unforgiving steward to heart.

Second Confrontation with the Pharisees
on the Morality of Divorce

“Is It Lawful For A Man To Divorce His Wife For Any Reason?”
(Matthew 19:3-12/Mark 10:2-12)

Our Lord’s primary teaching on divorce was in His great Sermon preached on a mountain to his disciples (Matthew 5). The focus of that was that men who treacherously divorce their wives in order to marry other woman or who are a party to breaking up someone else’s marriage in order to claim the newly released woman are guilty of adultery in the eyes of His father. Subsequent to that He had an interchange with the Pharisees (Luke 16) in which He reaffirmed those teachings in an illustration showing to the religious leaders that they were poor stewards of God’s Law, especially as it related to its divorce teachings. We come now to an event, twice recorded (Matthew 19 and Mark 10) in which the Pharisees came to Jesus and queried Him about his beliefs regarding the subject. On most understandings of the chronology of the life of Christ, this confrontation is thought to come after the Sermon, and likely after the confrontation over stewardship. While Jesus says more in this dialogue than in the other incidents, many commentators focus upon it, reducing the prior teachings almost to a footnote. Heth/Wenham’s Jesus and Divorce is an example. It is a study of alternative views of the exception clause as found in Matthew 19:9. I believe the reverse, that this is a footnote on the Sermon, which Jesus would not have spoken, had the Pharisees not confronted Him on the matter.

A Conflate Reading as a Solution to a Synoptic Problem

An initial question is, Are these two “parallel passages” really different treatments of the same event? Though the wording is very similar at most points, the differences have led some to believe that they are really two different accounts or are at least an example of one tradition altering the other for theological purposes. I believe otherwise. A great many studies make much of the fact that the readers or even the writers of the Gospels would only have had this or that block of material of the teaching of Jesus on divorce. Some would say that since Mark was written first and sent to a particular destination, its readers would hardly have had available to them the exception clause preserved by Matthew. Others presume that Matthew was written first and those who read it would surely have been surprised later to hear of the absence of that clause in Mark or Luke. I consider all of this to be the sort of unanswerable speculation that profits little.

What seems fair to say is that the teachings of Jesus on divorce were first spread abroad orally and known by Christians. Paul, who probably wrote his first letter to the Corinthian church before any of the formal Gospel accounts, repeats teaching that he did not receive firsthand. And, although we will not at this point do a complete exegesis of that Pauline passage, we might find it helpful to note that when Paul does refer to Jesus’ teaching in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11, he specifies that the kind of marriage he is talking about at that point needs to consider reconciliation. Since no remarriage has necessarily taken place at that point, and since the one who needs to be reconciled is always the guilty party in biblical terminology, Paul is obviously speaking to a person who has divorced without the grounds of porneia.³³⁶

It would seem to me that this use of language by Paul implies a knowledge of the material preserved by Matthew, and not simply that preserved by Mark or Luke. And why, I ask, should anyone who has all the words of Jesus in the parallel readings of Mark 10 and Matthew (5 & 19) presume that those who listened to Jesus preserved only the Mark 10 approach until Matthew saw fit to resurrect it at some point after Mark had written? This sort of groundless assumption, it seems to me, is dangerous to exegesis. It picks what it wishes to support and then creates a scenario that it then offers as evidence. There is not the slightest reason for thinking that the New Testament church did not know all of Jesus’ words on divorce from the moment He spoke them because the disciples did what Jesus said (as recorded in Matthew), namely taught others whatsoever things He taught them. And if so, then the exception clause was taught from the beginning.

But did the accounts preserved by Matthew 19 and Mark 10 arise from a single event? The similarities heavily outweigh the differences, and the presumption of a confrontation which included all the teachings is stronger than the suggestion that it did not. We have the parts, and, if we respect the integrity of the parts and their order, and try and blend them, presuming the least amount of redaction (thereby employing a form of the principle of parsimony), we may arrive at a conflate reading that is the base common to the “traditions” and perhaps well known to everybody involved in the writing of the New Testament.

What follows here is such a reconstruction, with the material peculiar to Matthew in boldface and the material peculiar to Mark in italics. Normal font is common material. Where redaction has obviously taken place, I have chosen the Gospel reading that I believe is the likeliest original and put the redaction in brackets.

And some Pharisees came up to him, testing him, and began to question him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife, saying, “Is it awful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all?”

And he answered and said to them, “What did Moses command you?”

And they said. “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send Her away.”

And he answered and said, “Have you not read, that he who created them [but] from the beginning of creation made them male and female, and said, ‘for this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? Consequently they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”

They said to him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate and send her away?” [But]

Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery “

And in the house, the[y] disciples began to question him about this again And he said to them. “Whoever divorces his wife, and marries another woman commits adultery against her, and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.”

The disciples said to him, “If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry.”

But he said to them, “Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it”

Though the reading may seem a bit stultified at some points, it seems no more so than a great many other places where the text is unquestionably preserved in full. This running dialogue eliminates the question of whether Jesus brought up Moses or they did. The answer is that both did, though not at the same time. It also shows that Mark modified his received information more than Matthew, but only by shifting some material around, while following his usual technique of eliminating whole topics for catechetical purposes. We shall learn more from this conflate reading, but let us do all things in proper order. [Consult Appendix C for more information about the sources and order of the writing of the Gospels.]

We will first analyze these passages as a conflate reading, then consider the significance of their present condition in the separate Gospels.

The Occasion Of The Pharisees’ Test Question

And some Pharisees came up to him, testing him, and began to. question him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife, saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all?”

It is a point of interest to some exactly what the background was for this test of Jesus. Generally one of three alternatives is discussed:

The Hillel-Shammai Debate?

The Pharisees were trying to get Jesus to take sides with one or the
other of the two Pharasaic schools: Hillel or Shammai

According to this idea, the dominant Hillel group was trying to get Jesus to side with the more conservative Shammai group, thus discrediting Him with the majority of the people, who were presumably favoring the more lenient position.³³⁷

This posture does not seem to me to be likely, for at least three reasons. First, the questioning Pharisees are not identified as being of one party or another. Josephus does not mention the distinction, merely stating the position of Hillel as if it were the only position in vogue. In fact, it is not clear that the distinction is significant to the New Testament. Jesus seems to lump them all together into a unit of misinformed moralists: Pharisees. Now if the Scripture doesn’t draw such a distinction, why should we? This is not to say that we may not speculate about which group dominated the questioners; however, to understand the question as arising from partisan-ship does not seem to be the focus of the text.

Second, and related to the first, what real profit would a group of Pharisees have obtained by showing that Jesus sided with another legitimate Pharasaic school? Would Jesus have lost face with the people by being identified with the distinguished conservative Shammai? Surely not. It is wholly out of character for the Pharisees to have tried to get Jesus to disagree with only one faction of their own religious community. Rather, it is their custom to show Jesus out of harmony with the Law of Moses. And this is precisely where the dialogue centers: upon the Law, not upon opinions about it.³³⁸

Third (and on the assumption that the questioners were Hillites), it is not at all clear that the people of Jesus’ day did prefer the Hillite view. Such an assumption seems warranted subsequent to the fall of the Temple (A.D. 70), but J. Jeremias has shown that the divorce rate around that time was probably close to only 4 percent, hardly an overwhelming problem!³³⁹ Assuming that the Pharisees were aware of the popular view as evidenced by the prevailing rate of divorce, and assuming that the Pharisees were aware of Jesus’ conservative position on divorce as evidenced by the Sermon and by Luke 16, it would have been counter-productive to their goal of discrediting Jesus with the populace to have shown Him to be conservative like Shammai. I cannot find much in favor of this opinion except that we have knowledge of the internecine squabbles of the Pharisees and believe that the New Testament must have recognized and spoken to them.³⁴⁰

The Herod-John the Baptist Affair?

The Pharisees were trying to get Jesus to speak out against
Herod Antipas’ marital affairs.

On this view, if the Pharisees could only show Jesus to be as outspoken as John, the word might get to Herod and Jesus might end up as John did—beheaded. To be said in its favor is that the New Testament is expressly concerned with this matter in a number of locations.³⁴¹ Moreover, to have placed Jesus in jeopardy with Herod would have significantly endangered His ministry—exactly the goal of the Pharisees.

Nonetheless, there are good reasons for rejecting this theory as an explanation of the nature of the “test.” First, Jesus had already spoken of this issue in the event recorded in Luke 16:18, at a geographical location more risky than “Judea beyond the Jordan.” And there, He brought it up the subject, not the Pharisees. Also, Herod had already taken notice of Jesus in regard to preaching like John (cf. Matt. 14:1 ff.). It is unlikely that this new occasion would have contributed effectively to the desired effect, unless Herod’s name were explicitly mentioned in that context. That was improbable, since Jesus had twice spoken on the subject and not done so.

Second, it is highly doubtful that the Pharisees would be willing to talk about theHerod-John affair. Recall that when Jesus questioned them about the authority of the baptism of John, they were afraid to speak publicly against the prophet (Matt. 21:23 ff.). Would they be likely to risk asking a question that would challenge the teaching of that martyr? It is especially doubtful when they knew in their hearts that John (and presumably Jesus) was in accord with the Law. And, what about their own culpable silence in the whole affair (noted in Luke 16)? Had they not lost face with the people by their silence when that popular leader lost his head? I think it improbable that they would have dared to bring up the subject in any public place!

But there is a greater reason for doubting that the Herod affair was behind the test. The question asked is 180 degrees in the wrong direction from the one they would have asked. Had they been interested in Herod, they would have asked Jesus if there was any reason a man was required to put away his wife. That was the rebuke voiced by John (Luke 3). Instead, they asked Him if a man had the right to put away his wife, a question that did relate to the less-celebrated aspects of the Herod affair, but certainly not the sort of question that anybody would have construed as an unequivocal challenge to Herod. The question of the Pharisees concerns right to divorce, not responsibility to divorce. For these reasons I think it advisable to search for another explanation for the testing of Jesus.

A Supposed Opposition to Moses?

The Pharisees were reflecting upon the prior teachings of Jesus and thought they had found a place where He disagreed with Moses. They thus sought to drive a wedge between Jesus and the Law, thus discrediting Him with the people by showing His earlier words did abrogate the Law.

Such a ploy is far more characteristic of the Pharisees. The very next time we find them challenging Jesus it is over the matter of the authority of His teaching (Matt. 21:23 ff.), an obvious chop at any contention that authority came from the Law. Later yet, when they made one of their final attempts to discredit him, they again questioned Him about the Law (Matt. 22:34 ff.). Jesus, in His subsequent condemnation of them, sarcastically derided them for their failure to be proper teachers of the Law, though they considered themselves such (Matt. 23:1 ff.). This latter text would seem to imply that they saw themselves as the exegetes and protectors of the Law. But most important, this interpretation agrees with Jesus’ reference to their rejecting Moses and the prophets regarding the divorce legislation in Luke 16. Granting that this is a correct analysis, it is easy to see that they would like to show Jesus’ teaching to be every bit a failure to uphold the Law as He claimed theirs was.

The conflate text gives two indications of what the Pharisees had in mind. The first clue comes from the Gospel writer Mark, who introduces the subject thematically: they were questioning Him as to whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife. Note that they do not ask about remarriage; they do not ask about the meaning of “uncleanness”; they do not ask if it is ever necessary to divorce a wife.

The fact that they are questioning Him may indicate that it was not clear to them what He really did teach on this matter. After all, early in His teaching (the Sermon) He had spoken of the grounds of porneia. But in the most recent exchange (that recorded in Luke 16), He had offered no grounds. In other words, there may have been the same confusion among them that exists among our own scholars about what the real teaching was! But more likely, the form of a question was mere Pharasaic debate technique.

In addition, we must credit the Pharisees with knowing the wording of Jesus’ prior teaching, In the Sermon, He had taken a slap at the Pharisees, prefacing his teaching by saying that if His disciples righteousness did not exceed that of the Pharisees, they would not enter into the kingdom. Doubtless someone, perhaps someone in the crowd, and they conveyed these remarks to the local Pharisees, and it is highly possible that they in turn shared them with their brethren. But at first there was little that could be done—at least with regard to the divorce doctrine. After all, His teaching seemed to be similar to that of Rabbi Shammai. To have questioned Him about grounds would, as noted earlier, have really gained them nothing by way of a crevice in which to drive a wedge between His teaching and the Law. I is also possible that by the time the statement of Jesus was repeated to the Judean Pharisees, the exception clause had been lost.

His more recent slap (Luke 16), spoken directly to members of the sect, was couched in the language of absolute prohibition of divorce (and remarriage). No rumor this. No second hand report. After they had regained their wits from His blast at their stewardship of the divorce legislation, they sought to put together a probe that would discredit him. It was an all-or-nothing question. “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause at all?” If He answers “Yes”, the very best they can hope for is a stalemate. Even they themselves could not agree upon exactly what the grounds were. But perhaps He had hardened his categories. Thus, they must be hoping that He would answer “No”. If such absolutistic, negative teaching were reaffirmed, they felt they could drive the wedge between Jesus and the Law, for the Law certainly did give the man the right to put his wife away, at least for adultery!

The Socratic Response of Jesus

And he answered and said to them,
“What did Moses command you?’

This “Socratic” response, though very rabbinic, was not what they wanted to hear. Jesus sidesteps the “No” and tosses it back to the “self-proclaimed” experts on the Law. They must be very careful here lest they say too much and find themselves fighting each other over the exact nature of the grounds, so they cautiously respond that there are some grounds without specifying exactly what they are.

The Cautious Response Of The Pharisees

And they said, “Moses permitted a man to write a
certificate of divorce and send her away.”

In their eyes, this was the only safe answer: Moses did allow divorce. But at this juncture they are close to having no further point to make. If they ask Him if that contradicts His own teaching (Luke 16:18), He may simply say “no,” and the dialogue winds down. But that is the only direction that they can go; they must get Him to say “no” to the original question. But in their cautious statement they speak better than they know!

Jesus discerns a “teachable” (or is that “rebukable”) moment, and takes the initiative. He knows that their understanding about the whole matter is wrong-headed. They start from the assumption that a man has a right by Law to end his marriage. They fight among themselves over exactly what this right of the husband is, whereas God desires permanence. To point out this crucial flaw in their thinking, He reminds them of another teaching of Moses:

The True Mosaic Context for the Divorce Discussion

And he answered and said, “Have you not read, that he who
created them from the beginning of creation made them male and
female, and said ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and
mother, and the two shall become one flesh’? Consequently they
are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined
together, let no man separate.”

They had been concerned with “when the man may walk away from his wife.” Jesus points out that the design of marriage is not to see it end. The man and his wife were designed to complement each other. When that complement became a covenanted couple, a union was formed, and the choice to do so involved an intention never to go back to their former singleness—it was an intention to permanency. Having acted on that choice, they do not have the right simply to “walk away” but should see themselves as a continuing social unit. And it must be remembered that God himself is the guarantor of the covenant. No human being should think that he or she has the moral right, unilaterally to dissolve the covenant. The covenant cannot be dissolved without challenging the One who insures the covenant: God himself.

At this point we should pause in our flowing dialogue and note how inappropriate it would have been for Jesus to have interrupted His argument by making new or incidental points about the doctrine of marriage. This would not have been the time to adopt the Temple Scroll approach to polygyny, for example. By employing the Septuagint’s “the two,” He simply means to identify clearly that the two who once could turn and walk away from each other (i.e., before the marriage commitment) have by their choice eliminated the option of doing so.

Many modern teachers of the Bible find it easy here to interpret Jesus as implying that, since “God has joined” the partners, Jesus is saying that marriage was originally made a permanent institution. The verse teaches nothing of the kind. Jesus does not say, “Since what God joins together is permanent, don’t get a divorce.” To have said that would have been to say exactly what the Pharisees wanted Him to say. It would have shown Him to be teaching contrary to the Old Testament by adding to it (or would that have been a taking away?).³⁴² Jesus affirmed as strongly as possible (without abrogating any teaching of the Law) the obligation of marriage partners to stay married. He said that it is immoral to sever the marriage bond, but not that it is impossible to do so. He does not say, “Since God insures marriage, you should never get a divorce.”³⁴³ Jesus does not use the normal and technical term for divorce here, but instead uses the word chorizo, which is well translated “sunder.” In all the uses of this word in the New Testament it never is used as an exact synonym for divorce. Jesus does not deny the right to divorce a spouse, He merely says it is wrong to sunder a marriage covenant.

What is not clear in this statement is exactly when such a sundering takes place. It could be at the point of divorce, or it could be at the point of porneia or even “uncleanness.” Jesus had affirmed the basics of /marriage divorce, without giving the Pharisees anything to “shoot at.”

But the Pharisees (like some of our modern exegetes) jumped to the hasty conclusion that by this saying Jesus implied that a man may not divorce his wife at all. And they are partially right, for from the context it is clear that some divorces might be categorized as sundering events! In any case, Jesus’ response seemed to be exactly the sort of absolute, negative teaching they had hoped He would voice. It seemed that Jesus had opened the door for them. They therefore leaped to the offense:

The False Coup de Grace

They said to him, “Why then did Moses command
to give her a certificate and send her away?”

This is truly a botched question, because nothing in what Jesus has said would logically deny that there might be a time to put away a person who, by unlawful actions in the marriage, has sundered the marriage bond already! But then, they doubtless thought they smelled the blood of victory. Haste makes waste!

Alas for their argument. Jesus now crushes it by showing how completely they have misunderstood the Mosaic legislation they cite.

The True Coup de Grace

But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he
wrote you this commandment—Moses permitted you to divorce
your wives—but from the beginning it has not been this way.”

This statement rings like a hammer upon their feeble words. And yet, it seems to me that most modern exegetes have enfeebled Jesus’ words by making two crucial misinterpretations of Jesus’ meaning at this point.

Two Crucial Mistakes in Interpretation

Is God Like the Unjust Steward?

The first is the incredible implication that God himself is guilty of what Jesus identified as the Pharisees’ unrighteous stewardship of eternal Law. The phrase “because of your hardness of heart” is interpreted as saying something like: “Well, God knows that divorce will take place, so He made a concession to you, allowing you to do what you wanted.” This would be to give the Master’s debtors a “cut rate” (cf. Luke 16:5-7) with regard to divorce law. Can God condemn in human beings what He himself allows? That certainly does not sound like the Father of whom Jesus said, “You are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Whatever Jesus meant this “concession,” it would be blasphemous to interpret concession as compromise.

What then? For whom is the concession? For the wives whom these hard-hearted men have been divorcing since before the days of Moses. It is “because” of male hard hearts, not “on behalf of them. God has provided against the fact of male impunity, not in favor of it. Knowing that they will be treacherous and turn their backs on their covenant partner, God has provided a law that will minimize the abuse. He will wink temporarily at hard hearted husbands putting away innocent wives so that these wives will be saved from their husbands, who would perhaps physically abuse them if forced to keep them. So the permission to divorce has nothing to do with condescending to wicked men, but everything to do with preserving innocent women.³⁴⁴

Is God Opposed to Moses?

The second mistake in interpretation is in seeing Jesus as abrogating this concession. This is done specifically in the exegesis of the next words of Jesus, but the interpretation of them is determined by His words “from the beginning it has not been this way.” Can these words be referring to the Mosaic concession? Most commentators say “Yes”. But, we may ask, have not husbands been hard of heart since the beginning? Was God unconcerned for the well-being of wives from the beginning? Since Jesus has come, have hardhearted men disappeared from the face of the earth? Have wives ceased to need such divine protection? How can we answer “yes” to any of these questions?

The grammar here is interesting; “from the beginning it has not been this way” (gegonen) does not mean from the beginning until a point in the past (i.e., the giving of the Mosaic “concession”). That translation would be clear had the text used the tense called “pluperfect.” But it uses the simple perfect instead, which should be rendered “from the beginning all the way up to the point of my speaking these words.” To be more specific, I take this verb to be an “intensive perfect.” That form is the “strong way of saying that a thing is.”³⁴⁵ In other words, Jesus is not trying to distinguish between a dispensation up to Moses, followed by an hiatus, in turn terminated by Jesus’ present teaching, but rather a continuing divine attitude that runs clear from the beginning of creation up to the point of the Lord’s speech—right through the time of Moses and the exercise of the Law!

Heth, in his contribution to Four Christian Perspectives dispensationalizes marriage into three periods: Paradise; Mosaic Covenant; and Jesus’ teaching.³⁴⁶ The first and last are similar, with Moses’ period being one of “compromise and concession.” Again, note how the times of Law, usually thought of by theologians (and by Paul) as times of strictness and limited grace—where the laws were principles too hard to bear—has become, in the teachings of Heth and others, a time of compromise, superseded in strictness by the teachings of our gracious Lord!

Laney, in the same work, goes in for this kind of reasoning, in the same book, when he says, “God chose to progressively reveal his displeasure with divorce and direct his people back to his standard.”³⁴⁷ To be sure, there is a progression of revelation in the Bible (e.g. regarding the identity of Messiah), but it is strange indeed to argue that the Law is more cryptic and less strict in judgment than the teachings of Jesus or in the Garden!

This raises an interesting consideration. Did God or did not God inspire Deuteronomy 24:1-4?³⁴⁸ Perhaps we should adopt an interpretation of Jesus’ words that drives a wedge between God and Moses. “From the beginning God had it one way, but then Moses gave another. And now I am going to restore the divine way.” If God’s character is changeless, then it must have been that Moses imposed his own ideas at that point on the Law. Perhaps Christ wishes to point this out by saying it was only Moses who compromised the true teaching to the desires of hard-hearted men!³⁴⁹ Certainly not! Jesus did not mean to divide Moses from God, and if He had, the Pharisees would have been the first to point it out—which they did not do.

What, then, is the “this way” that has not been from the beginning? Even though the this is a Greek word that directs attention to a close reference (the grammar book would make it the “concession”), I believe that it is only defensible to make its antecedent the implied right to get out of the marriage that is behind the questions of the Pharisees. For them, Moses was, in Deuteronomy, granting the man a unilateral right to end his own marriage.³⁵⁰ Remember their initial question: “Is it legal for a man to put away his wife for any cause at all?” Note as well their response to Jesus’ Socratic answer: “Moses permitted a man to write … and send away.” Jesus attacks their implication that marriage is an institution whose covenant is hedged in favor of spouses that wish to exit the relationship. Marriage is meant “for keeps,” not for temporary association. It is the Pharasaic implication that has not been God’s way from the beginning. Deuteronomy 24:1-4 had nothing to do with an alleged (moral) right to put away one’s wife. Deuteronomy 24:1-4 was God’s rule for minimizing the effects of treachery. Additionally note that in a sense the referent is the “concession”—not as Moses meant it, but as the Pharisees had interpreted it!

I believe that Murray and others are wrong-headed in suggesting that Jesus tries to correct a mistaken Pharasaic thought that when the woman commits adultery the husband must divorce her. I do not deny that some rabbis held to such obligation, nor even that there was such an implied obligation, but there is not sufficient indication that this point was important to these Pharisees or to Jesus in this confrontation. Certainly Deuteronomy 24:1-4, which seeks to protect the woman from the abuse of a hard-hearted husband, finds it proper for her to receive a certificate of divorce, and, just as certainly, that text does not require a woman to be divorced for the sin of adultery.³⁵¹ As we noted earlier, there is no indication that “uncleanness” refers to any act of an immoral sort. As to the responsibility of a man to sooner or later divorce the spouse as a matter of discipline, I shall have more to say presently. But that idea is not only rabbinic, it is also the lesson we learn from God’s treatment of Israel.³⁵²

Christ’s Summary of His Teaching To The Pharisees

“And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality,
and marries another woman commits adultery.”

Jesus then summarized for the Pharisees His previous teaching on divorce and remarriage to make the awesome point clear. With regard to the pending question of grounds for divorce, this, of course, is not at all what the Pharisees wanted to hear. By the most likely interpretation of the grounds for divorce implied by this saying, Jesus could be considered no more conservative than Shammai—and that ended the debate, as far as the Pharisees were concerned. They could go no further on the subject of their choice without arguing among themselves. Thus, Jesus turns away from them. He had no more interest than they in continuing the dialogue.

Nonetheless, there was within Jesus’ words a rather shocking implication. Jesus was saying that the man who took advantage of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 and put away his wife was really guilty of the sin of adultery—though sexuality was not involved.³⁵³

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. For we must now take the time to dissect this statement to see exactly what Jesus is saying. We must carefully consider the exact grammatical structure of the sentence, lest we be charged with being ignorant of factors that others think prohibit such an interpretation as ours.

Jesus begins this saying with His customary words of authority. Rather than appeal to some Pharisee, He speaks forth from His own understanding of God’s word.

The most extensive study of the syntax of this saying as it is presented in Matthew 19:9 has been done by Heth/Wenham. The facts they set forth are summarized in the following list:

1. The saying (thus far) is a conditional statement. If a certain condition is met, then a certain result will follow.

2. The statement of condition (technically called the protasis) is compound. It states two conditions: divorce and marry.

3. The protasis contains a negated prepositional phrase placed before the coordinating “and.”

4. Prepositional phrases are adverbial and normally qualify the verb they follow. That verb is “divorces.”³⁵⁴

Additionally they note:

1. This construction may well be a hapax. It is rare indeed to find a compound conditional with a negating prepositional phrase that comes after the first verb.³⁵⁵

2. “Greek word order is far less significant to the meaning of a sentence than the order of words in an English sentence.”³⁵⁶

3. (Spoken with regard to simplistic appeals to the lexicon in determining the meaning of a word) “it is the context in which a word appears where it is used on the lips of a particular individual with a given meaning he intends to convey-all of this indicates to the reader how a word is being used.” (I would add that the same warning is even more appropriate where syntax is involved—since syntax often involves higher level interpretation than the mere meaning of a word.)³⁵⁷

The two conditionals are subjunctive, active aorists. The actions are not certain to occur, but if they do they will be definite actions done by the male agent: he puts away [his first wife] and he marries [another woman]. As I noted regarding the saying recorded in Luke 16:1 believe that the “Kai” clause, “and marries another” intends to identify, by means of an ongoing narrative, the direction of the male’s actions. By telling us that the divorcing man is a man who is remarrying another woman, the text means for us to understand that he put away his wife for the purpose of marrying a second woman. Unlike Luke 16, and like Matthew 5:32a, Matthew 19:9 specifies the treachery involved by employing the exception clause, namely, the divorcing male does not have Biblical justification (porneia), but only the desire to take another woman which motivates him to put his wife away.³⁵⁸ Such a man, Jesus says, is committing an act of adultery, if such a condition is all the man can muster. The verb identifying the offense of adultery, moikatai, is present middle or passive deponent indicative third person singular. Having lost its active form, this verb employs the middle/passive form to convey the action committed against the first wife. His adultery is an ongoing offense in the hypothetically present time (i.e., in such a present time as when the conditions set forth obtain).

The Placement of the “Exception Clause”

The major point of controversy, as far as Heth/Wenham are concerned, is the precise location of the negating prepositional phrase (i.e., the celebrated “exception clause”). They note that it could have been placed in any one of three locations in the protasis:

Whoever (1) divorces his wife (2) and marries another (3) …

1. Between whoever and divorces.

2. Between the wife of him and and marries another (which was Matthew’s choice).

3. At the end of the protasis (i.e., after marries another) and before the apodosis (i.e., the result, commits adultery).

The first option would, they feel, make divorce for fornication “mandatory.” The second would make the combination of groundless divorce and remarriage adultery. The third would permit remarriage after groundless divorce.³⁵⁹

Heth/Wenham are especially set on disproving any use of this verse to affirm the right to remarry after divorce, a right they believe to have been denied by early Church Fathers.³⁶⁰ The first major (modern) proponent of the view they reject was Erasmus, the sixteenth-century Christian humanist; hence they identify the position by his name: the Erasmian position. The modern spokesman for this view is John Murray, late theologian of Westminster Seminary, and it is largely Murray’s work that they criticize. At this point they object to his statement that the number 2 position can properly support what they fancy only the number 3 could. By using the principle that the prepositional phrase modifies the verb that precedes it, they object strenuously to any attempt to make it modify both parts of the protasis. They stop short of denying that it is possible for both parts to be modified, however.

As for their own explanation, they feel that the Greek structure present in the verse may only properly be interpreted in their way, which later they refine to say that “putting away for reasons other than unchastity is forbidden; and remarriage after every divorce is adulterous.” This latter statement arises from their opinion that “we are dealing with two conditional statements, one that is qualified and one that is unqualified or absolute.”³⁶¹

Just how sound are their conclusions? I do not feel that they will bear the weight of analysis. First, their conclusion that the complex conditional is properly delineated as two conditional statements is highly strained. The verse does not contain two independent statements, only one. They artificially separate the first from the second condition. They have done this, it seems to me, simply to stress the alleged independent nature of the second condition. They wish to say that remarriage after every divorce is adulterous. But the verse does not say this. The negating clause does indeed modify the first condition, but it is logically suspect to separate the qualified idea from the second condition, which is syntactically tied to it. Or maybe we should put that the other way around: it is improper to interpret the second condition independently of the negated first condition.

Heth/Wenham start with humility when they admit that the construction is unique, but they end dogmatically when they deny that the second condition can in any way be qualified by the qualified first condition. They cite the frequency of such negating prepositional phrases modifying what comes before rather than what comes behind, but happily forget their own admission that there are perhaps no other instances quite like this one (a complex conditional with the negating phrase interrupting the conditions). Thus, I believe that they are hasty in their conclusions.

Moreover, it is doubtful that the except phrase would have been put at any other point in the sentence. As Heth/Wenham note, such phrases do not precede the verb they modify unless the phrase is intended to be the emphasis of the statement.³⁶² By all accounts, the phrase is not intended to be emphatic, and that is the only reason I can see why it ever would have been put in the number 1 position. The exception clause is clearly not the point of the verse: it is an exception, pure and simple. Nor am I convinced that, had the exception been placed in the number 1 position, the saying would have required divorce if fornication had occurred in the marriage. It would far more likely have simply implied emphasis.³⁶³ The number 1 position would certainly have been a grammatically confusing location for a non emphatic, negating prepositional!³⁶⁴

The number 3 location is even more confusing grammatically and conceptually. Since, as these writers have noted, the negating prepositional phrase normally modifies the verb (singular) that precedes it, it would have given the impression that “he who marries another, except for fornication, commits adultery.” But, what is “marrying another except for fornication”? This option is certainly grammatically harsh. In fact, whatever could the placement of the phrase there mean? Would it not give the impression that divorce resulting in remarriage would be adulterous unless the reason for remarriage was “fornication”? What does this mean? To say that the divorce was grounded in “fornication” clearly implies that the first wife was divorced because she was a fornicator. But who is guilty of the fornication in position number 3? If the negating clause is tied only to the immediately preceding verb, (re)marries, and not to divorces, it is anybody’s guess who is guilty of fornication—perhaps the husband, perhaps the second wife. Who knows? In any case, whoever it is would seem, by committing it, to have freed the husband of the sin of adultery, and that, of course, would be grossly immoral. It would negate the condemnation of adultery where treacherous divorce and remarriage had taken place—and because somebody had committed fornication in some way relating to the remarriage!

It is possible, perhaps, that the prepositional phrase could have been put after the apodosis: “he who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery (except for fornication).” But this too is semantically confusing. The prepositional phrase should be closer to its verb than that. I see no reason to speculate further about this option, which is not mentioned by Heth/Wenham.

That leaves us only with number 2, exactly where the Gospel writer put it. But what are the logical implications of this location? I summarize as follows:

1. The negation is not emphatic. It is an aside from the major point: the husband does not have a right to end his marriage.³⁶⁵

2. The negating phrase modifies the previous verb: “is divorcing.” Unchastity is a concern regarding the divorce, not the (re)marriage. It is valid grounds for divorcing. Grammatically, the negating value of the phrase would still obtain even if there were no second condition.

3. The apodosis cannot be alleged to obtain unless all the conditions that precede it obtain also. Thus it is improper to say that all divorces that end in remarriage are adulterous. Rather, all divorces not grounded in fornication that end in remarriage are adulterous.³⁶⁶

In the end, it seems to me that something like the following is going on in the minds of these scholars: insofar as remarriage is always implies adultery and divorce is always a sin of at least some other sort, the syntax of the Gospels must be interpreted as saying this. In other words, Heth/Wenham have read their own conclusions into the syntax. Actually, the statements in Mark and Luke, when abstracted and considered out of their context, do seem to prohibit all divorce and remarriage, but, when seen in their contexts and in the context of Matthew’s exception clauses, they prohibit only divorces that are ill grounded, i.e., not grounded in porneia.³⁶⁷

One final thought on the matter: it is arguable that Heth/Wenham are essentially correct about the exception clause modifying the divorce and not the remarriage without granting them their cherished conclusion that remarriage is always adulterous. For, in a sense, the matter of remarriage is parenthetical. If a man divorces his wife, without the proper grounds of porneia, he is guilty of adultery. Whether or not a remarriage takes place is incidental. Heth and Wenham want to make the point of committing adultery the remarriage. But the real point of adultery is the divorce, as Matthew 5:32a makes clear to all who allow the first saying to be independent of the second.

They want to exclude the matter of remarriage from the freedom from onus, but then bring it back in as the cause of the onus. They simply assume this. But, I submit, it must be argued, and that is not really done.

Conclusions of the Teaching:

Re Remarriage and the “Innocent Party”

Several reflections on these points are in order. First, Heth/Wenham’s contention that the verse prohibits remarriage after every divorce cannot be conclusively proved by the grammar. The Erasmian view is still possible, as they admit. Second, since the verse wants to make a point of the fact that groundless divorce involving a remarriage is adulterous, it is most reasonable to conclude that properly grounded divorce involving remarriage is not adulterous. To be sure, it would be clear that it is permissible to remarry in such cases had the conditional read: “only if a divorce is improperly grounded and remarriage occurs is adultery present.” The absence of the only may be interpreted as casting some shadow of doubt over the remarriage of the righteous divorcer. But one who affirms that remarriage of the righteous divorcer is adultery bears the burden of proof, and the proof certainly cannot be obtained from this saying or an abbreviation of it (as is certainly the case in Mark’s rendition, since he is relating only part of the conflate reading). Third, the passage does not clearly speak at all to the matter of the treacherously divorced person remarrying. That issue is never brought up, and conclusions concerning this matter must be supported from other locations in the biblical text. I believe that the Scripture permits such remarriage in two ways:

1. The man could always marry another woman, as long as she was a valid marriage partner, for example, not a “woman of the land” or a “blood relative.” Thus, the moral permission of polygyny affirms the right of the innocent man to remarry.³⁶⁸

2. The woman who was treacherously divorced could remarry without moral stigma, according to Deuteronomy 24:1-4.³⁶⁹

Re Remarriage and the Guilty Party

What, however, should be said about the guilty party? Does this teaching completely eliminate the option to remarry for the divorcing husband who groundlessly puts his wife away? Our answer is in one sense yes and in another no. Were Jesus to completely eliminate a right to remarry, He would have to abrogate the Old Testament doctrine of morally permissible polygyny. And, we note, this would not at all be what we would expect from the nature of the dialogue at hand. It is not to His dialectical advantage; nor would it be consistent with His profession to not abrogate the least of the laws, including the permissions granted in the same; nor does it fit into the flow of the dialogue for Him to have implied that remarriage for an unjust man was adultery. We cannot jump to the hasty conclusion that Jesus is completely condemning the second marriage.

But what then does the presence of the second conditional mean in the overall condemnation of adultery? Perhaps at this point it is worthy of note that a textual problem exists with the second conditional. These important words are omitted in some significant manuscripts of Matthew.³⁷⁰ However, since they are present in Mark, and since we are examining the conflate reading, we need not busy ourselves with this matter until we come to a consideration of the particular omissions and inclusions of the Gospels considered separately. Beyond this, the textual support for the omission is not as strong as for its inclusion.³⁷¹ Thus, we have no right to ignore the combination of conditions.

I prefer to see the presence of the second conditional as an identification of the reason for the unjust divorce. It is the person who is divorcing and remarrying as a united action who is committing adultery. We might even say that the divorce has not been properly grounded upon occurrence of fornication in the marriage; this man has put away his valid wife “for the purpose of marrying another woman.” This conjecture is supported by two considerations. First, this places it clearly in the category of the divorce situation that most recent, previous Scriptural teaching, Malachi 2, addressed, namely men divorcing their proper wives to marry others (“women of the land”). The only difference is that the specific objects of remarriage in Malachi’s day were illicit per se according to Exodus and Deuteronomy. As we noted in chapter 4, the reference to Abraham in the Malachi 2 passage affirms that these Hebrews could have taken these women as concubines (as Hagar had been), thus sort of half-wives, without moral stigma. The point of the Malachi passage is that the abiding sin is the rejection of the valid partner. This is to say, the problem is the divorce itself.³⁷² So too here, it is not the remarriage itself that is the problem. The immorality only occurs because the first wife has been unjustly divorced (a point that Matthew notes and the other Gospel writers choose to omit).³⁷³

Second, it is not improper to find in the meaning of the connector “and” (kai) the idea of “for the purpose of.”³⁷⁴ And the idea of immediate connection (ignoring the parenthetical exception clause, which could not be put elsewhere) seems clear in the combining of the conditions in the protasis that precedes any moral condemnation in the apodosis. The condemned action is again like that of Herod. He divorced his valid partner to marry Herodias. And so it often happens, especially where men do the divorcing. They often wish to devote themselves to only one woman (or more commonly the woman wishes the man to so devote himself), and so they treacherously put away the rightful partner to achieve the desired monogamous relationship. It is the case that, since the man promised to continuously provide for his valid partner, this putting away is itself adulterous.³⁷⁵ This is doubtless Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians 7 when he instructs the treacherous partner to remain unmarried or be reconciled.³⁷⁶

Please note that it is not so much that the lexical meaning of kai denotes “for the purpose of as much as its presence in the flow of the discussion presents us with a narrative explanation of why the first, unjustified divorce occurred. It would be like my saying, “Any man who bears witness against his neighbor without cause and enjoys the effects of the perjury breaks the commandment” (Proverbs 24:28). Or, “Whoever steals his neighbor’s property and makes use of it is guilty of theft.” In both cases the enjoyment of the neighbor’s loss is only incidental information to the real moral point: the real sin is in the initial act, not the subsequent gratification the sin affords. Indeed, these illustrations do not really tell the whole story, for if it is/were morally permissible for the man in question to take a second wife anyway, then the sin only (illicitly) enhanced a moral option, whereas in the illustrations, the enjoyment was only possible via an act of sin. Be this as it may, we cautiously conclude that remarriages that are not the goal of the divorce, that is, a part of the combined action of divorcing and remarrying, may be permissible—all other things (e.g., the belief of the potential partner) being equal.

Against this one might argue that the presence of the exception clause between the conditions spreads the two apart. But I do not think this is a proper evaluation. As we have noted earlier, the present location of the negating prepositional phrase is the only one reasonable, and it is parenthetical. Therefore, I do contend that the divorcing and remarrying are “historically” united in the hypothetical wrongdoing.³⁷⁷

Finally, it is worth noting that the present indicative form of the offense term: is committing adultery, is not to be over-read to imply that the sin of adultery is endless. As with all sins, it continues until repentance occurs. Paul will later (1 Cor. 6:9-11) identify certain sins which the Corinthians had committed, but quickly add that such sinners they used to be, but now are not, insofar as they have been cleansed by Christ’s blood. The sin of adultery committed by a treacherous husband is not unpardonable nor indefinitely ongoing simply because the present indicative form is used. That form merely conveys the idea that the sin is ongoing. And it is ongoing until it stops. It stops with repentance. It is just as wrong to insist that the present indicative in this saying implies endless action regarding adultery as it would be to say that Jesus’ very speaking of the saying (the present active indicative, lego, which begins verse 19:9) is endless. Jesus didn’t keep on speaking the saying, He was saying it once.

But what is involved with the “repentance” of which I speak. It involves the guilty party confessing his sin to God and to the aggrieved party, namely the first wife. Repentance also implies that what can be done to rectify the situation will be attempted. Personally I do not feel that a dissolution of the second marriage in order to re-establish the first is implied. Sinning again against a covenant is not a proper way to be righteous. Rather, I believe the man will make sure that the first wife is cared for (especially in a time in which the pre-paid alimony of a bride price, held in trust by the guardian of the bride is not a custom). This means that the man will pay a reasonable amount of alimony and child support.

Even if the man does not remarry another woman, it is not essential that a remarriage to the first wife take place. For one thing, the cast-off wife may justly be skeptical of the man’s intentions and reliability and not wish to be committed to him again. She has to forgive a sincere penitent, but she need not remarry him. For another, she may have remarried herself.

Clarification to His Disciples

Their Questioning

“And in the house, the disciples began
to question Him about this again.”

With these sayings, Jesus has properly and completely answered the test question of the Pharisees. They wanted to know if a man had a right to put her away and, if so, for what causes. Jesus corrects their orientation, turning it from the idea of how they can get out of marriage to the eternal design of marriage: continuing union. Previously had He righteously affirmed the right of the offended party to discipline an erring spouse, i.e., divorce for porneia. But His own disciples were apparently either not clear on the divorce teaching or incredulous regarding it. For when He turns aside and goes into a house, they question Him further: What does it mean? His response is not as detailed as that already given. He simply summarizes the major point of the teaching for emphasis. The problem is male treachery.

Male Treachery

And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife,
and marries another woman
commits adultery against her.”

The saying is again a complex conditional statement, with the main verb in the first condition of the apodosis, apolusee—he who puts away, subjunctive aorist active, being in the third person singular. Again by way of reference, the subjunctive mood shows some hesitancy, as if the action might not happen. The aorist tense conveys the thought of punctiliar or definite action, though indefinite as to time. Being active the verb identifies the man (the sex represented by the previous masculine pronoun, “Os”— “he who”) who is the agent. He is doing the putting away. The sum of the meaning is that, it is possible that a man may intentionally put away his wife. This putting away is clearly a divorcement.

This verb is connected to another subjunctive active: gameesee, [and] “if he is marrying [another (woman) of the same kind].” These verbs, combined, set forth the condition of the next key verb: moikatai, “he is committing adultery [against her—his first wife].” This offense-identifying verb is an indicative, present, middle or passive deponent verb form. The present indicative speaks of ongoing action taking place in the [hypothetically] present time. The man who divorces is the causal source of the offense. The accompanying pronoun, her, identifies his first wife as the recipient of that offensive action. Thus, if and when a man puts away his wife and marries another woman, he is committing adultery against the first wife. I believe that this form of the saying spoken just earlier to the Pharisees is consistent with it. Jesus is identifying a man who has treacherously put away his marriage partner in all probability for the purpose of taking another woman to be his sole wife. The only point omitted is the exception clause which was just uttered in their hearing. He omits it because what He now says is what He wishes pedagogically to leave with them, that is, a general rule about what adultery is: the sundering of the vow to continuously provide for the valid marriage partner. Marriage was intended to be permanent. The marriage bond cannot be broken without the sin of adultery taking place. This explains how the saying, as I interpret it above, fits with the section that stresses the sacredness of that bond. When the covenant is broken by an action such as “fornication,” the divorce does not “sunder” the bond, the action itself has. If there is not such sundering prior to it, then the legal divorce is itself the sundering—is a treachery, is adultery.

Heth/Wenham make a serious mistake at this point when they hasten to imply that, since marriage is not sexual union, the Erasmians err in suggesting that fornication (while the covenant is operative) breaks the bond. These authors hold that illicit sexuality does not break the bond,³⁷⁸ and that is why the sexuality of the remarriage is adulterous. They hold that the couple whose marriage is legally and even properly ended³⁷⁹ still have a marriage bond with each other until one of them dies. Thus, a remarriage constitutes adulterous sexual activity, but apparently which does not end the first one-flesh relation. Yet, if this is a proper interpretation of their work, what does sunder the marriage covenant. If noting but death, then why does Jesus prohibit the sundering of marriage. Is He prohibiting death! Certainly not.

They have failed to comprehend the covenantal and contractual nature of marriage. It is not the simple fact of extramarital sex that constitutes the sundering of the bond, but the intentional engagement in acts that are counter to the canons of the covenant. The woman who intentionally has sex with another man sunders her marriage. The sundering does not take place because sex has occurred—the marriage is not sundered when she is raped—but when she is willing to engage in an act that she promised in the covenant not to do. For the man, his sundering of the relationship rests, not in his having sex with another woman—polygyny having been morally permissible—but in his forsaking of his covenant partner simply to devote himself to another bed partner. The bond is broken when the covenanted promises (to provide for the first wife) are not kept.

This does not mean that every breach of the covenant must lead to a legal divorce. If the covenant can be restored without such severe disciplinary action, that is desirable. God shows us the example to follow when He attempts for some time to get his “wife,” Israel, to see the error of her ways. Only after that attempt does He put her away. Nor does disciplinary action short of divorce mean that reconciliation is impossible without a formal divorce and remarriage to the same partner. It is enough for the erring partner to reaffirm the intention not to further break the covenant. So Israel did in their times of national revival.

The Reversal Clause

“and if she herself divorces her husband and marries
another man, she is committing adultery.”

This addition might seem especially applicable for disciples who would soon be “discipling” the nations, teaching them whatsoever I taught you.” However, the Herodias case, in which she divorced Philip using Roman law, certainly made this saying relevant to Jewish ears even at that point. Nonetheless, women divorcing men was rare in Israel, and for Jesus to have brought this point up in front of the Pharisees would only have put the subject off on a sidetrack. The point would have been clear to such teachers, but they would likely have been scrambling for “debater’s points” after being so thoroughly silenced by Jesus.

The question arises, however, as with the man, when exactly does her sin of adultery happen. Does it happen as a result of her remarriage? This is the common assumption. Again I must disagree. Adultery only exists if there is a covenant. If the woman divorces her husband in order to marry another man, she ends the covenant. For her, as for him, an unjust divorce is the sundering of the marriage covenant. God has been a witness to their marriage, and neither party has the right to unilaterally end it. If either party does, that party sunders the marriage by the divorce action. And that goes for the woman as well.

It is to be remembered that though Jesus does not discuss it, Exodus 21 teaches that there are valid reasons for a wife becoming free from her husband. Whether she divorced him or was he was forced to end the legalities (as in Exodus) in such instances, the covenant was ended in the eyes of God when he abused her. Thus, Jesus could have said, “If a woman divorces her husband, except on the grounds of abuse, and marries another, she commits adultery.” But the issue of a woman’s grounds never came up and the Old Testament position rules. This means that, as with the man who had no grounds, her adultery happens when she separates from her husband—at the divorce. It is not her remarriage which constitutes the adultery, because she is no longer bound by covenant to him.

The Disciples’ Evaluation

The disciples said to him, “If” the relationship of the man
to his wife is like this, it is better not to marry!

This is the only substantive response of the disciples to the saying of Jesus. It is a sober response, but there is in it no hint of the “astonishment” mentioned by some teachers.³⁸⁰ Laney voices the feelings of many commentators when he suggests that the disciples must have thought Jesus’ teaching more strict than the teachers they were accustomed to hear. The only explanation that Laney can see for such a comment is that the teaching of Jesus must not have allowed for any divorce.³⁸¹ But this view simply cannot stand up under examination. For as we have seen, Jesus in fact did allow for divorce on the ground of porneia.

Yet Laney will not be disposed of so easily. His own idea is that porneia means “illicit marriages, incest,” and, therefore, the exception clause simply permits an illicit marriage to be legally ended. The parties involved in the marriage alluded to are unfit for each other. Thus, no legitimate marriage may be morally broken by divorce.

There is a certain consistency to this approach, but it will not wash. In the New Testament, the term porneia includes more than incest, and the incest itself might not be with the marriage partner but another family member—promiscuity. Indeed, any attempt to limit the crucial word to the perversion of incest will sooner or later end up showing the careful Bible student that incest was grouped with adultery, homosexuality, and bestiality as gross forms of porneia.³⁸²

In the end, we are justified in saying only that the disciples were sobered by Jesus’ teaching that divorce is not a right to be exercised by the man but an exceptional disciplinary action to be taken only if the spouse has already broken the covenant, and that any attempt to divorce a wife simply out of a desire to devote oneself to another woman is the sin of adultery. Such teaching was not held by any rabbi. Even Shammai, who permitted a man to divorce his wife if she had committed an act tantamount to adultery, does not go on to call a divorce without such a ground the sin of adultery. In effect, the Pharisees knew of nothing such as Matthew records Jesus as teaching: that adultery need not involve sex, that it may be constituted simply by a man breaking his vow of continuing provision for his spouse (even if the breaking is done with legal sanction).³⁸³

The Eunuch Saying

But he said to them, “Not all men can accept this
statement, but only those to whom it has been given.”

Two problems arise in the interpretation of Jesus’ response. First, to what “statement” does He refer, and, second, who are the men to whom that statement had been given?

Two Identifications of the “Statement”

D. A. Carson succinctly points out the options:

Either ton logon touton (lit, “this word”—regardless of whether touton is original, since ton can be a mild demonstrative) refers to Jesus’ teaching (vs. 4-9) or to the disciples’ misguided remark in v. 10. We will look at them in reverse order.³⁸⁴

“Statement” Refers to the Disciples’ Remark

Carson continues that the

NIV’s “this teaching” (v. 11) favors the former, but this is unlikely, for it makes Jesus contradict himself. After a strong prohibition, it is highly unlikely that Jesus’ moral teaching dwindles into a pathetic “But of course, not everyone can accept this.”³⁸⁵

Accordingly, Carson suggests that “it is better to take ‘this word’ to refer to the disciples’ conclusion in v. 10: ‘it is better not to marry.’ Jesus responds that not everyone can live by such a verdict, as abstinence from marriage.”

Heth/Wenham, in the unpublished manuscript of their Jesus and Divorce, stated reasons why this identification is unlikely. First, the term this statement “is a significant unit in Matthew’s Gospel … and elsewhere it always refers to the words of Jesus which He has just finished delivering.”³⁸⁶ Second, they observe, with Quesnell, that it is not customary in Gospel writings for the disciples’ responses to Jesus’ teaching to be positively received by Christ.³⁸⁷ In the published version of Jesus and Divorce they altered this section. Stressing that on the “traditional” view verse 11 would seem to speak of two classes of disciples (“not all” vs. “only those”), they strongly reject the idea that Jesus’ teachings on divorce and remarriage could be for only one group and not another.³⁸⁸

Statement Refers to Jesus Teaching

It seems preferable to identify the “statement” with Jesus’ previous teaching. However, to interpret the retort as sarcastic ultimately yields the same general result as that offered by Carson. The “ironic” approach has Jesus saying that of course there are some who do not need to pay attention to His teaching: eunuchs. The net effect is that, since few men desired celibacy, they would choose to get married and, by that choice, place themselves under obligation to follow the rule set forth by Christ for the married, that is, stay married until death or porneia.

What Is the Significance of the “Eunuch Saying”?

“For there are eunuchs…”

At present there are three major interpretations of the “eunuch saying” that follows Jesus’ dialogue with the Pharisees and comprises His response to the reaction of His disciples.

The Renunciation-of-Marriage View

believes that these verses advocate the renunciation of marriage. Thus, Jesus is promoting celibacy for the sake of the kingdom

This view, called “traditional” by Heth and Wenham, is advocated by W. D. Davies and D. R. Catchpole.³⁸⁹ According to this view Jesus is agreeing with the disciples and issuing a “call to celibacy.” In other words, celibacy is elevated as a valid option for those who have not been given the gift of marriage (cf. Matt. 19:12). But Heth/Wenham object that such an interpretation is wrong for just that reason, as noted earlier: in the Gospels, Jesus seldom agrees with the disciples. To this, they add that Matthew omits all similar apparent depreciations of the marriage state included in other Gospels (Luke) and rather elevates marriage in the wedding feast parable.³⁹⁰ Finally, they submit Paul’s introductory comment to his own elevation of celibacy as proof that Jesus had not previously taught that celibacy is preferable. In 1 Corinthians 7:25, Paul says, “I have no commandment from the Lord,” just before he launches into a discussion of the virgin state.

Carson softens the interpretation by suggesting that Jesus “freely concedes that for those to whom it is given ‘it is better not to marry’; and ‘That one who can accept this should accept it.’” In other words, Jesus admits that marriage is not intended for those who have the gift of celibacy.³⁹¹

This is not as bad as speaking of “elevating celibacy,” but I still feel uncomfortable with it. Does the text itself, aside from the questioned passage, suggest that celibacy is a “gift”? Hardly. Celibacy is seen as imposed by hereditary deficiency, by mutilation by others, and by one’s own choice.³⁹² Without a clear teaching of the “gift of celibacy,” it seems preferable to suggest another interpretation altogether.

The Celibacy-of-the-Divorced View

believes the verses refer to the husband whose wife has been put away, requiring him to consecrate himself to a celibate life (at least until his former wife dies).

Proponents of this view, in addition to Heth/Wenham, include Q. Quesnell, J. Dupont, Hermas of Rome, and J. D. M. Derrett.³⁹³ On this view, the referents of” not all receive this saying” are the Pharisees, who reject the words of Jesus, whereas “those to whom it has been given” are the disciples of the kingdom.³⁹⁴

Support for this position is drawn from the account of the rich man, which follows the divorce passage. It is pointed out that when the rich man turns away and Jesus tells them the “hard saying,” that it is difficult for rich men to get into heaven, the disciples voice astonishment (“Who then can be saved?”), which is met by Jesus’ comment, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” In this case, the “this” reaches back to the “hard teaching,” not to the words of the disciples. The argument then runs: just as the two groups of receivers in the rich man story are unbelieving men and disciples, so in the divorce legislation is the division the same.³⁹⁵

Though this all sounds tempting, this view’s major drawback is that it commits a logical fallacy. In effect, its proponents are saying:

In A there is a formal pattern Y with content Z.

In B there is a formal pattern Y with content ?.

Since Y is the same in A and B, the content “?” must be Z.

This is a form of the fallacy of the undistributed middle. Just because A and B are alike in the stated formal respect Y does not mean that they are alike in the material respect Z. Beyond this, it seems to me that the stories are not the same at crucial points. Although the second story does contain a saying, it is not the saying to which the “this” refers, but salvation itself. By the nature of human beings as fallen, salvation is beyond them, unless God acts. In the divorce legislation, the “this” refers to the rules of marriage, which any who marry are expected to observe; there is no indication anywhere in the Bible that the ability to keep essential marital vows is a “gift,” unless it is a gift with which even fallen humans are born.³⁹⁶

It seems to me that the proponents of this view have made a mistake that goes beyond bifurcating disciples; they have bifurcated humanity in such a way that God seems to demand behavior according to one set of rules for disciples and another for the lost. Though this distinction may work regarding “house rules” for the Church, it is destructive of ethics when it is done in the domain of basic morals. We have returned again to the idea that God is a Pharisee who does not demand full morality of His debtors (those created in the image of himself and for whom His Son died). If it is wrong to attempt to break the covenant of marriage (by remarriage), then it is wrong for both the saved and the lost.

This interpretation does commend itself for insisting upon a connection to the saying of Jesus rather than the response of the disciples, but there is no reason to assume that the connection drawn is correct. My own opinion is that these expositors have missed one of the more humorous texts in the New Testament. Jesus has laid down the rule of marriage in His saying. That rule is: marriage is designed for keeps. The husband cannot raise some alleged right to exit the institution aside from his wife’s previous breach. Since, we may suppose, adultery was uncommon in those days, this has the effect of saying that, if a man enters into the “bonds of matrimony,” it is for keeps. To this the sobered disciples reflect that if marriage is that binding one should exercise the option of celibacy.

The disciples’ response is, on its face, ludicrous. How incredibly shortsighted to forgo the pleasures and profits of marriage simply because it is nearly impossible to get out of it! How would you respond to such a foolish statement? Proverbs 26:5 tells us to “answer a fool as his folly deserves, lest he be wise in his own eyes.” This is, I think, exactly what Jesus does.

He tells them that His saying about marriage (which, note, is not limited merely to the discussion of remarriage) is intended only for those to whom it is given, or, put otherwise, it only applies to those to whom it applies. If a person wishes to be celibate, then, of course, he or she needn’t pay attention to Jesus’ words. They are not intended for the don’t-wannabes, but for those who are or wish to be married.

The disciples have spoken of a man who, fearing the intended permanency of marriage, cuts himself off from marriage; Jesus goes into detail denoting the groups of people who do not have to worry about His saying: congenital eunuchs, forcibly castrated men, and those who remain celibate by choice, for religious reasons, it is presumed. All these need not worry about marriage rules. But the others, those who are in possession of their genitals and wish to use them, must adhere to the saying. In short, Jesus is saying: “If you have the plumbing, and you intend to use it, you must follow the rules!”³⁹⁷

The alternative then presents itself:

The Rules-of-Using-the-Plumbing View

believes that the saying informs the disciples that his teaching on marriage is only intended for those who get married

This interpretation of the eunuch saying does identify the referent of the “this statement” with His own teaching. Jesus does not agree with the silly reflection of the disciples. They were suggesting that celibacy should be standard behavior, and Jesus points out that celibates are exceptions. He does not attack celibacy—had he, Paul would have had a very different response in 1 Corinthians 7:25! This view does not reflect negatively upon the institution of marriage. It shares this with the celibacy-of-the-divorced view, but has the benefit of being simpler. The celibacy-of-the-divorced view presumes that Jesus reflects only upon the remarriage of the divorcing husband. That is, at best, only one aspect of the complex conditional saying of Jesus. This third alternative can be seen as commenting upon the entire pronouncement at its most general level. Jesus has been trying to affirm the sanctity of marriage per se. It is most appropriate that the eunuch saying address the same level of teaching. The third alternative does so, and thereby is the alternative that presumes the least. This adherence to the “principle of parsimony” gives it the edge as the preferable interpretation.³⁹⁸ Jesus simply informed His disciples that His straightforward teaching that marriage cannot be broken by the man without his committing the sin of adultery does not apply to those who are by birth, force, or choice not using the “plumbing.” Conversely, His saying is for those who choose to use it and care about the morality of that use!³⁹⁹

Why are there Significant Differences between Gospel Accounts?

So far, we have been considering the pronouncements of Jesus on divorce in the parallel texts of Matthew 19 and Mark 10 as a conflate reading, believing that Jesus did confront the religious leaders and spoke words from which the different Gospel writers selected their accounts. It is appropriate at this point to note the differences between the accounts. In doing so, we wish to understand the message of each Gospel account in its own right and thereby understand why each included or omitted material from the original, longer reading. In this section we need to put to rest the issue of why Matthew includes the exception clause and Mark omits it.

The major differences between the two Gospel accounts vis-a-vis the conflate reading seem to be four in number:

1. 1. Matthew alone contains the exception clause.

2. 2. Matthew alone contains the eunuch saying.

3. 3. Mark alone contains the reciprocal clause “and if she herself divorces … ”

4. 4. Matthew’s account has the Pharisees make Moses command divorce, whereas Mark has them note that Moses permitted divorce.

Why Matthew Alone Contains the Exception Clause

The first difference in this list is the most celebrated. As noted in Appendix C, some have sought to explain the distribution of this clause to Matthew on the basis of an “ethnic calculus,” whereby Matthew is supposed to have directed his Gospel to a more Jewish audience and therefore included for them an exception to the general rule against divorce and remarriage that fit their culture. This exception is variously defined as relating to Jewish betrothal customs or the Levitical “holiness code.” This explanation we found wanting.⁴⁰⁰

My own explanation for the inclusion of the clause in Matthew and the exclusion of it in Mark revolves around two major poles. The first, granted by all scholars, is that Mark is a fast paced Gospel, designed that way, in all likelihood, so that it may function as a sort of catechetical tool, perhaps a manual on evangelism.⁴⁰¹ His Gospel being a sort of “primer” focusing upon gospel issues, Mark considered the larger body of materials that were available to him and the other Gospel writers and edited out whatever material he thought superfluous to his task.⁴⁰² It is my belief that Mark eliminated the exception clause for the sake of logical economy.⁴⁰³

I anticipate that someone who is adept at mathematics will object that the exception clause contains far fewer words than the reversal clause. But this is to miss the point. It is not the mere number of words that is at issue. The exception clause in Matthew 19 must be seen in its relation to materials present elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel; I refer to that large section in the latter half of Matthew 18 that deals with discipline. Note carefully that the entire section Matthew 18:15-35 is missing in Mark. The prior material (Matt. 18:5-14) is paralleled by Mark 9:33-50. Careful consideration of these inclusions and exclusions reveals the following: Matthew and Mark include material concerning self-criticism, but only Matthew expands this to discussion of the criticism of others, that is, discipline of the brother. Mark ends the section that precedes the divorce legislation with the idea of putting your own self in order and living at peace with others. Thus the flow of his Gospel is self-criticism and keeping the peace.

Matthew, on the other hand, includes a large section on discipline. In that section he mentions confrontation of the other who has sinned (against you?). And after laying down a certain process by which charges are to be brought, he notes our Lord’s harsh teaching that the unrepentant sinner is to be excluded from the fellowship of the brethren. But that is not the end of it. He goes on to note that the purpose of discipline is restoration-forgiveness. Jesus does not demand that forgiveness be given, or that the offended wait forever to hear a confession in order to get about the activities of everyday life. Some sinners should be thrown in jail until (if ever) they come to their senses. Matthew precedes his divorce section with the words, “so shall my heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart” (Matthew 18:35).

In Matthew’s context, it is only natural that he might include similar material in the section he strings together with it. How appropriate that the call for forgiveness from the heart should move on to two cases of hard-heartedness: unjust divorce and the hindering of children. And in the first case, how appropriate that Jesus should utter the exception clause, since that clause succinctly captures the principle of the Old Testament doctrine of (righteous) divorce as the discipline of an adulterous and unrepentant spouse!

It is worthy of more than a footnote here to say that the fact of discipline, and its hope of success, does not forever determine the marital status of the righteous divorcer. Though it is true that God, in His infinite patience and acuity, waited for divorced Israel to return to him, and though Hosea shows us how successful the divorce and restoration process can be, it is faulty logic to go from the “is” to the “ought” by concluding that the righteous divorcer (the innocent party) should wait indefinitely for the repentance of the spouse. Human beings are not like God. God may choose whether or not to be alone, but it is not good for human beings to be alone. And though that aloneness may be assuaged by friendships, we must remember that Paul notes that it is better to marry than to burn. The innocent party is under no obligation to wait indefinitely for the return.⁴⁰⁴ Guilty parties have forfeited the right to expect consideration. Theirs is the task of repenting and being reconciled as quickly as possible. Remember, too, that some will never willfully repent. Those should not be forgiven and restored. To do so would be to make a mockery of divine justice. On the other hand, to fail to receive back a repentant spouse when the disciplinary divorce is effective is a dangerous misuse of the doctrine of grace and forgiveness, as Jesus makes clear in the unforgiving steward parable. To fail to forgive and restore certainly releases the guilty party from an obligation to “remain unmarried,” because it puts the guilty shoe onto the other foot. The guilty becomes the innocent, and the innocent becomes the guilty. All these points seem implicit in the disciplinary discussion found in Matthew.

To return to our subject, note that for Matthew to have included the exception clause is to be expected. For Mark to do so, when he has previously edited out a matter of discipline, should not be. It is more than a matter of word count; it is the tip of a large iceberg. Mark simply did not want to get into a discussion of the discipline of others. His context is judgment of oneself, not judgment of the other. His is a context of keeping the peace if possible. His is a concern with evangelism of the lost, not the discipling of the righteous. The inclusion of exceptions to the general rule of no divorce—don’t try and legally end your marital relationship—is most inappropriate.

The Matthean Eunuch Saying

The second Matthean passage omitted by Mark is the eunuch saying. Again, it is simply because Mark is a selective Gospel. The majority of this private teaching of Jesus to the disciples is more or less redundant to that spoken before the Pharisees. Perhaps for this reason Mark omits it. But one point is not: the reversal clause, he retains. And, being concerned with locations, he mentions the house. Matthew, focusing upon the teaching, does not mention where the discourse with the disciples took place. And the fact that the Lord has shifted His attention to them is clear.

The Marcan Reversal Clause

The third difference, the reversal clause, seems an oddity. Since Mark’s custom is to omit material found in Matthew and Luke, why is his Gospel expansive on this point? Believing in Matthean priority, as I do, part of my explanation is that Mark did not wish that bit of Q material to be lost—as it was not included in either of the other two finished Gospels. But there are other considerations as well. For one thing, Matthew emphasizes the chauvinism of the Israelite males. He includes the clause “you to divorce your wives.” Mark omits this clause. In the flow of the Matthean account comes across an emphasis on the guilt of the men, notwithstanding the inclusion of the exception clause. At no point is this more evident than in the eunuch saying, where the chauvinism of the disciples is quite pronounced. It is also evident in the harshness of the Pharisees’ summation of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 (“Moses commanded to give her a certificate and divorce her”). It may also be reflected in the inclusion of “cleave to his wife,” with which Jesus pricks the male conscience of the Pharisees. He is stressing that they were the ones who had committed themselves to the women. There may be more indications of this rebuke of the celebrated male superiority that pervaded the Israelite community in Matthew’s Gospel, but I believe that these are sufficient to make the point that Matthew was highlighting this aspect of the conflate reading by his selecting out of the reversal clause.⁴⁰⁵

Nonetheless the concept of the clause completes the idea found in Matthew 5:32b, where a woman herself divorces her husband. Mark’s gospel, with a supposed (more) Gentile audience, needed the condemnation of unjust divorce by the woman, more than did the initially more Jewish audience of Matthew, where divorce by women was seldom seen. The completion is seen in the fact that gender does not change the immorality of unjustly divorcing an innocent spouse. Another factor to consider is that such reciprocity in the moral teaching on divorce continues the flow of “be at peace with one another”, which likewise does not place an emphasis on one gender or another, but includes both.

Different Presentations of Moses?

Perhaps what I have said so far helps to explain the fourth of the points of significant difference: the different representations of Moses. The statement found in Matthew is harsher, and its inclusion there fits the flowing anti-chauvinism theme, whereas the milder statement fits better the more irenic tone of Mark’s Gospel.

Summary

Let us summarize this section by stating that although both Gospels contain the same general material, each has its own emphasis. Matthew is more specific and inclusive as a rule. Continuing a prior theme of disciplinary action, he includes the exception clause, and emphasizing the rebuke of Jewish male chauvinism, he omits the reciprocal clause, while including aspects of the original dialogue that entail that matter. Mark, on the other hand, is more general, omitting material extraneous to his less ethically discipling approach. The differences are not disharmonious in the final analysis. And it is to that matter, that is, the harmony of Jesus’ teaching on divorce, to the Old Testament.

Conclusions: The Harmonization of the Whole

What, then, is the full teaching of Jesus on divorce and remarriage? Simply put, it is the same as that of the Old Testament Law and the Prophets. It is true that Jesus tends to emphasize what the Old Testament did not, but then that is characteristic of Him. The Matthew 5:31-32a passage clearly teaches that divorce, when it is groundless, is the sin of adultery in the eyes of God. Since the issue here is substantially that taught in Exodus 21 (minus the explicit identification of refusal to provide as breach of covenant, i.e., adultery), we see nothing unique or new about this aspect. Matthew 5:32b and Luke 16:18b affirm that any man who is a party to a woman’s unjust divorce of her husband is guilty of the sin of adultery.⁴⁰⁶ The fact that treacherous divorce by the woman is for the purpose of taking another man obviously places it in the category of standard sexual adultery as set forth in the Law (e.g., Lev. 18 and 20; Deut. 22:23 ff.). In this case, the fact of a legal divorce does not displace the overall judgment that this woman and her new husband have been party in taking a man’s wife (i.e., herself) for sexual purposes.⁴⁰⁷

Luke 16:18a, Matthew 19:9, and Mark 10:11 all reflect the Malachite oracle against unjustly divorcing a wife in order simply to marry another woman. And Mark 10:12 admits of the reciprocity of the application of the principle at this point. Further, the celebrated exception clauses are merely an application of the principle stated in the Old Testament Prophets that divorce is a tragic means of discipline to make the offending spouse come to his or her senses and be reconciled. Finally, the Old Testament permission for the innocent party to be remarried (explicit in Deut. 24:1-4 and implicit in Exod. 21:11, 26 f.) is not blunted by anything said by our Lord. Even the guilty party who repents but is not forgiven is not to be identified with the divorce/remarriage prohibited by Christ. Old Testament permission for such a one is most evident in the nexus of polygyny passages.⁴⁰⁸

Jesus does not speak explicitly to the right of a woman to procure a divorce from her husband on the grounds of his mistreatment of her. Jesus passes over this Old Testament instruction (Exod. 21:10 f.) without a word.⁴⁰⁹ And this omission should not be construed as a rejection of that right, Neither should His words be seen as expanding the moral grounds for a woman to divorce her husband to include the husband’s sexual infidelity (porneia). The exception clause is only used in the context of the wife’s unchastity, not the husband’s. This does not exonerate the husband from the onus of sin, but only from the penalty of divorce. His porneia is to be dealt with like any other non-canonical⁴¹⁰ marital offense, that is, confession and repentance or ultimate excommunication from the fellowship of the Church.

³³⁶   Since the Scripture does not place any moral onus upon one divorcing for such a ground.

³³⁷   Cf. tape series on divorce by J. MacArthur, Jr.

³³⁸   Nor would it have been in the best interest of any Pharasaic school to have Jesus agree with them. At this juncture in his ministry, the questioning Pharisees were indeed trying to discredit, not credit, the Nazarene!

³³⁹   Joachim Jeremias. Jerusalem in the Time cf Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969), p. 371. This is only the figure for one city near Jerusalem, but in view of the lack of data, this must stand as typical unless amended by subsequent studies. I cannot see that the geographical area in which the question arose (“beyond the Jordan”) would differ markedly from the demography of the town cited.

³⁴⁰   It is true that divorce was far more prevalent among the Pharisees themselves (cf. Hill’s Matthew, as cited in Carson’s “Matthew,” p. 11), but this is not the point The argument is that the Pharisees were trying to discredit Jesus among the common people, not among themselves.

³⁴¹   Luke 3; Matt 11; and probably Matt 5:32 f. and Luke 16:18.

³⁴²   See my discussion of the Old Testament teachings, especially chaps. 3 and 4.

³⁴³   So John MacArthur in his tape series on divorce.

³⁴⁴   In this light, we cannot but be astonished by the remarks of John MacArthur when he asserts that God, by the concession, is permitting righteous men to put away incorrigibly treacherous wives! (Hear his tapes on the subject of divorce/remarriage).

³⁴⁵   Dana and Manty, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament (New York. Macmillan, 1927), p. 202.

³⁴⁶   Heth, Four Christian Views (InterVarsity Press, p. 73-74).

³⁴⁷   Ibid. p. 25.

³⁴⁸   I actually have heard conservative evangelicals affirm this option. Some have spent days searching the context of Deut. 24:1-4 to find the places where the inspiration breaks! Marcion could have been an inerrantist is such an approach is allowed!

Murray adopts this view of Moses. Says he: “The Mosaic permission was, therefore, a departure from the creation ordinance and from the practice to which it obligated men.” I see this as making God a compromiser of moral principle.

D. A. Carson suggests the abrogation rests in the fact that “Jesus’ judgments on the matter are therefore both lighter (no capital punishment for adultery) and heavier (the sole exception being sexual sin)” (“Matthew,” p. 417). I cannot agree to either point. In the first place, as the introductory statements in the Sermon reveal, Jesus is not making law, only interpreting it. Second, Jesus is only accommodating the prevailing law with regard to divorce in the place of execution—as did the prophets Hosea and Jeremiah. Jesus does not want to fight the issue of whether it was proper for foreign overlords to suspend capital punishment. Divorce was clearly an acceptable substitute, under the circumstances, for capital punishment, but Jesus does not wish to make the substitute judicial or to give it legal status. He did not come as a judge. Moreover, I believe that Carson’s interpretation of Deuteronomy is incorrect and that it has misled him regarding the second point. That God permitted the protective divorce of innocent wives by husbands set on breaking their vows by divorce does not mean that God gave moral sanction to the men so divorcing their wives. God has always morally permitted divorce only on the grounds of infidelity to vows. Any other divorce implicates the divorcer in a treachery justifiably identified with adultery. See Appendix D.

³⁴⁹   This is especially true of the Hillite school.

³⁵⁰   Lev. 20 required her to be executed for that offense.

³⁵¹   It is sad to note that Heth/Wenham, in their work on the divorce teaching of Jesus, take such a cavalier attitude toward the God/divorce/Israel language of the Old Testament They say that one should not take such language seriously, because if one does, one will also have to take the God/polygyny language seriously. Exactly! And properly! But the a priori reigns in their thinking. Jesus, p. 136.)

³⁵²   Cf. Appendix D.

³⁵³   Heth/Wenham mention word frequencies and stylistic tendencies in Matthew’s early chapter that confirm this rule; Jesus, pp. 99-100.

³⁵⁴   Heth & Wenham, Jesus, p. 114.

³⁵⁵   Ibid.

³⁵⁶   Ibid., p. 133.

³⁵⁷   Ibid., pp. 115-16.

³⁵⁸   See also argument infra regarding remarriage and the guilty party.

³⁵⁹   Jesus, p. 117.

³⁶⁰   See Appendix F.

³⁶¹   Jesus, p. 117.

³⁶²   Ibid.

³⁶³   This is not to say that the idea of required divorce in such cases would be improper. See both Chapter Four above, on the divorce teachings of the Old Testament prophets, and Heth/Wenham’s own findings regarding the views of the early Church Fathers! (Jesus, chap. 2.)

³⁶⁴   I also believe that had it been there, it probably would have supported the “Erasmian” option: “Except where there has been fornication, divorce and remarriage is adultery.”

³⁶⁵   D. A. Carson makes almost precisely the same point about this alternative. Cf. “Matthew,” p. 416.

³⁶⁶   At no point is the weakness of Heth/Wenham’s “syntax argument” more evident than in their attempts to illustrate what they mean. In a footnote (Jesus, p. 234, n. 20) they offer the following example, introduced by the comment that cremation by a killer is “suspect: since murderers sometimes do that to destroy evidence”:

1. 1. To kill someone and cremate them is murder. (Cf. Luke 16:18; Mark 10:11, 12)

2. 2. To kill someone, if it was not by accident, is murder. (Cf. Matt 5:32)

3. 3. To kill someone, if it was not by accident, and to cremate them is murder. (Cf. Matt 19:9)

They forthwith conclude that “killing as such and cremation are always murderous. Only accidental killing not followed by cremation is not murderous. Only divorce for immorality not followed by remarriage is not adulterous.”

This is an illustration of questionable value. In the first place, “killing” and “cremation” are, as such ‘morally neutral’ as far as I am concerned. And though this fits my understanding of the parallel term in the Scripture (i. e., “divorce” and “[re]marriage”) I am sure that Heth/Wenham do not hold either biblical term to be morally neutral. “Divorce” is said to be absolutely prohibited (p. 198). The only way I can understand their point would be to say that divorce is always a moral wrong (See back cover of Jesus.) Thus, unless Heth/Wenham believe that “killing” is absolutely prohibited, they have chosen a poor analogy. And as for “remarriage,” they say it is always the sin of adultery (ibid.). It is possible that they think cremation always to be wrong, but they do not say that it is “as such” in their illustration. Thus they have chosen a very poor analogy indeed.

Next, notice that the statements themselves are ethically suspect Who would make such a statement as number 1? The state might well execute a murderer and cremate the body. Would that be murder? Hardly! Number 2 is also only a general way of talking. Execution is not “accidental,” but it is not murder. Therefore, number 3 is also not a true statement. The state may execute (not by accident) a murderer and cremate the body, but not be guilty of murder. It is true that the Bible says that divorce and remarriage are adultery in Luke 16:18, but it is open to question exactly what that means. Just as one could say that to kill and cremate is murder, reflection on other ethical truths reveals the statement about killing to be only a general rule. So, too, the statements in Luke and Mark may only be general rules. It is true that just as it is not proper to describe accidental homicide as murder, it is also true that it is not proper to describe divorce grounded in porneia as adulterous However, to argue that divorce is yet some other kind of sin would be as wrong as calling accidental homicide a moral offense. Moreover, to suggest that killing (though accidental) when followed by cremation is the whole of it murder is as clearly nonsense as suggesting that divorce (which is not adultery) when followed by remarriage is the sin of adultery. Just as it is improper to say that killing and cremation as such are always murderous, so too it is improper to conclude that divorce and remarriage are always adultery. And although it is true that accidental homicide not followed by cremation is not murderous, it is certainly wrong to say that accidental homicide followed by cremation is murderous. Can the form of disposal of a body as such make either the killing or the combination of killing and disposal murder? So too, it is improper to speak of divorce for porneia when not followed by remarriage as only “not adulterous.” Actually, the relation of this last pair is so confusing that it is hard to see what Heth/Wenham are driving at.

A better illustration would be:

1. To unilaterally, legally nullify a contract and make another is dishonest. (Luke 16:18)

2. To legally nullify a contract, unless it is because of improper actions on the part of the partner, is dishonest (Matt. 5:32)

3. To legally nullify a contract, unless it is because of improper actions on the part of one party, and to make another contract is dishonest (Matt 19:9)

In each, the issue is the improper nullification of a contract. Number one is the simple statement that it is wrong to break a valid contract for the purpose of making another. The second is an even simpler statement but the exception to the rule is stated as well. In the third, the two are put together, informing us that it is wrong to break a contract (unless there is justification) simply to make another. The making of the second contract is only mentioned as evidence that the nullifying party is capable of making and keeping contracts. Otherwise, it would not have been wrong for the party of the first part to go ahead and make a contract with the party of the third part. And if the ending of the contract was legitimate, then one should think nothing of drawing up a new contract.

³⁶⁷   Wenham persists in pressing the syntax argument (cf. “The Syntax of Matthew 19:9,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 28 (1986): 17-23). It doesn’t seem to me, however that Heth puts as much weight upon the syntactical argument in his contribution to Four Perspectives (pp. 104-05) For further treatment of the except clause’s meaning, see chap. 5.

³⁶⁸   Heth and Wenham, Jesus, p. 218, n. 17.

³⁶⁹   See appendix B.

It is my belief that Deut. 24:1-4 is the proper location to look for teaching relative to this subject rather than Luke 16:18, since in the latter verse Jesus is simply trying to identify the failure of Pharisees to teach and follow existing Old Testament morality.

³⁷⁰   Codex Vaticanus, especially.

³⁷¹   Sinaiticus includes it.

³⁷²   I do not mean to minimize the sin of the women being invalid partners. I only wish to point out that had they been valid and the prior marriages left unbroken, there would have been no condemnation by God through the prophet.

³⁷³   Cf. chap. 5 and the comments of Heth and Wenham, Jesus, p. 120.

³⁷⁴   BAGD, s.v. “Kai.” Also Blass & DeBrunner’s premier Greek Grammar of the N.T. & Other Early Christian Literature (University of Chicago Press, revised in 1961), p. 227, “kai” may have the “connotation of purpose.” They cite only Revelation 14:15 as an example of this use. But I would add that 1) given the most probable historical context of Herod (who divorced his wife for the sole purpose of marrying Herodias), and 2) the O.T. context of Malachi’s prophecy (which condemned Jews who had divorced their Hebrew wives in order to marry women of the land—chapter 2), my translation/ interpretation of “kai” as having the sense of “for the purpose of marrying again” is the interpretation of preference, though it is a rather rare use of “and.”

It is my thought that the Greek conjunction here reflects a similar use of the Hebrew vav (“and”) See TWOT, Vol. 1, p. 229. I note this because we are trying to understand the words of Jesus who was Jewish-words recorded in Matthew, which is a very Jewish Gospel. The book of Revelation (which is included in that citation by Blass and DeBrunner) is itself quite Jewish—the Greek being a thin overlay on Hebraic thought and language structure.

³⁷⁵   In the sense of breaking the moral canons of covenant. Cf. chap. 2.

³⁷⁶   Cf. Chap. 8.

³⁷⁷   I shall have more to say about “all things being equal”—and the point at which guilty parties are released from their obligation to “not remarry” when we look at the emphasis of the individual Gospel records.

“And he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” Though some early manuscripts support this clause, it seems to have been assimilated from Matt 5:32b. This clause was discussed in the previous chapter.

³⁷⁸   Heth and Wenham, Jesus, p. 104.

³⁷⁹   They do believe that there is a proper ground for divorce.

³⁸⁰   William Gothard (Supplement to the Supplementary Alumni Book, vol. 5, 1979, p. 2) alleges astonishment; D. A. Carson (“Matthew” p. 419) properly denies it.

³⁸¹   Laney, Myth, p. 65.

³⁸²   Cf. Chap. 5 for a full discussion of the meaning of this term and a treatment of the different views that are held about its intended meaning.

³⁸³   It is not self-contradictory to say that the disciples were surprised at the conservatism and the novelty of Jesus’ teaching contrasted to what they had been taught all their lives and, at the same time, the conservative practice regarding divorce common among the Jews. The populace seldom divorced and yet seems to have accepted the liberal interpretation of Hillel. There is security in believing you have freedom even if you don’t take advantage of it. Jesus appears to take that freedom to divorce away and that is what sobered the disciples.

³⁸⁴   Carson, “Matthew,” p. 419.

³⁸⁵   Ibid.

³⁸⁶   Heth and Wenham, “Jesus and Divorce” (in manuscript), p. 40.

³⁸⁷   Ibid., p. 41.

³⁸⁸   Heth and Wenham, Jesus, p. 56.

³⁸⁹   Ibid., p. 54; W. D. Davies, The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964); D. R. Catchpole, “The Synoptic Divorce Material as a Traditio-Historical Problem,” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library 57 (Autumn 1974): 95.

³⁹⁰   Heth and Wenham, Jesus, p. 63.

³⁹¹   Carson, “Matthew” p. 419.

³⁹²   Of course, Carson, being a strong Calvinist, might well argue that human and natural causation are not at odds with divine sovereignty, but that conclusion is foreign to the statement of the text at this point All Jesus says is that celibacy can arise from different causes.

³⁹³   Quesnell, “Eunuchs,” pp. 341-42 (see chap. 5, n. 21); Dupont, Manage, pp. 161-220 (see chap. 5, n. 21); Hermas, Mandate, 4.4.1-4; J. D. M. Derrett, Law in the New Testament, and TDNT 6:592, lines 2-5. Derrett’s view, highlighted by Heth/Wenham in an appendix to Jesus (pp. 204 f.), arises from his undebatable commitment to the interpretation of Gen. 2:24 as teaching indissoluble monogamy (his = exclusively his). The exclusively I do not doubt, but I deny the monogamy. The woman was to be exclusive to him but not the reverse. Derrett has over-read the text. This false start causes him to make further mistakes in interpretation down the way. Seeing Deut 24:1-4 as a prohibition of all remarriage since remarriage defiles an existing relation creates a them-in-one monstrosity. Jesus is presented in the Gospels as permitting an offended spouse only to clean his house of the adulteress—but not to remarry, since his one-flesh relation, though defiled, still exists. Remarriage of the innocent is a breach of the Seventh Commandment, which is interpreted by Derrett as forbidding the marriage of any unmarried people who will not or cannot marry. Believing the Bible teaches that the one-flesh bond can be multiple (for the male) and broken (by willful breach of covenant), I reject Derrett’s theory. He makes man for marriage, not marriage for man.

³⁹⁴   Heth and Wenham, Jesus, p. 59.

³⁹⁵   Heth and Wenham, Jesus, pp. 58-61.

³⁹⁶   Although a good wife is a gift from God.

³⁹⁷   I agree with D. A. Carson, who rejects Dupont (Manage, op. 161-222) and Moloney (“Matthew 19, 3-12 and Celibacy: A Redactional and Form-Critical Study”). Journal of the Study of the New Testament 2 [1979]:42-60), when they argue that the eunuch statement means to exclude remarriage. As Carson notes, “‘eunuch’ is a strange figure for continence after marriage, especially since if the divorced spouse died, the survivor could remarry (Dupont’s view).” Carson, “Matthew, p. 418.

³⁹⁸   And, I might add, this interpretation is quite in accord with the “Erasmian” position. I hasten to note, however, that neither I nor Murray wish to be “modem proponents of Erasmus.” That identification, now made popular by Heth/Wenham in Jesus, creates unfortunate “guilt by association” for many who do not appreciate Erasmus’s non-Reformational Catholicism.

³⁹⁹   This interpretation reminds me of Proverbs 14:4 “Where no oxen are, the manger is clean, but much revenue comes by the strength of the ox.” Yes, having an ox implies that you need to follow the rules of animal husbandry, and that can be stressful at times. But think of all the good that comes from having the ox! So too, marriage has its rules, but, for the most part, isn’t marriage wonderful!

⁴⁰⁰   See chap. 3 for a more detailed consideration of these options.

⁴⁰¹   See my Mark as an Evangelistic Manual.

⁴⁰²   He preserved the general rule, after the same manner Paul does on the subject of children obeying their parents. In Colossians 3:20 a general teaching is given, while the more complete (i.e., inclusive of exception) is taught in Ephesians 4:1.

⁴⁰³   This is related to my belief, mentioned in an earlier note, that Mark wrote last and abbreviated the material of Matthew/Luke/Q-Q being produced by the hand of Matthew, and comprising his discipular journal. I mean no depreciation to Mark’s work or that or the Holy Spirit in authoring the Gospel. I mean only that Mark, the writer, was at work selecting according to a purpose.

⁴⁰⁴   Cf chap. 8 on Paul’s teaching.

⁴⁰⁵   I add to this my previous comments about Mark’s Gospel seeming to be used more in geographical areas where women did divorce their husbands, so that it would be more appropriate for the clause to be found in this Gospel.

⁴⁰⁶   Interestingly, the effect of the John 8:2 ff. story is the same. Jesus refuses to hear the blemished testimony of men who have set the woman up for the charge of adultery.

⁴⁰⁷   This is not to say that some mystical bond still exists but that morality is not so blinded by legalities that it cannot see the nexus of covenant violation.

⁴⁰⁸   From the Old Testament we may well be in doubt as to the propriety of the guilty wife remarrying. I conclude that the guilty husband who remarries has not committed adultery in his remarriage per se, though this oversimplifies the situation. He has committed adultery in the treacherous divorce of his wife, and he has done so simply for the sake of marrying some other woman. And, although the Scriptures never state that the second wife is guilty of adultery, we may presume that, if she is a party to the treachery, she is guilty of the same sin. It seems difficult to suppose that only the husband is guilty of it when he conspires with the second woman.

⁴⁰⁹   I am not contradicting what I just said. The principle (i.e., do not break covenantal vows) is found in Exod. 21 as well as in Exod. 20:14 and is behind the explicit teachings of Jesus. It is the specific application of that principle to the failure to provide that passes unmentioned. Yet even here, note that Christ’s condemnation of groundless divorce as the sin of adultery comes very close to the point of Exod. 21:11. It falls short, however, of noting the freedom of the woman to divorce and remarry. I suspect that Jesus found this latter point too obvious to mention, since so clear in the O.T..

⁴¹⁰   By “non-canonical” I do not mean extra-scriptural, but rather “not specified as a cannon of covenant—the revealed requirements for marriage partners to pledge to each other.