In Matthew 19:3 the Pharisees went to Jesus and asked, “Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for any cause?” They were testing Jesus to see if He would agree with the Old Testament, or contradict it in a way that would allow the religious leaders to trap Him or turn the Jewish people against Him.
The Old Testament rule for divorce is found in Deuteronomy 24:1 “When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.”
Even among the religious leaders, there was much disagreement about what the verse in Deuteronomy meant. By the conservative Pharisees, the phrase “found some uncleanness” was interpreted as, “if the woman has been unchaste.” Other, more liberal interpreters defined it very loosely, as in, “If she is a bad cook”, or even, “If he finds a woman more beautiful than her.”
Jesus answered them by saying (paraphrase) “Don’t you know that God made people male and female so that they could come together and be one?” His meaning was clear: God’s intent for marriage was for it to be a permanent union. In fact, Malachi 2:16 goes so far as to say that “God hates divorce.” Marriage is viewed by the Lord as a permanent relationship.
The Pharisees, still not satisfied, went further and asked Him, “Why did Moses give us permission to divorce?” They wanted to know, why did the Old Testament give them regulations for divorce if they weren’t supposed to get divorced?
Jesus answered, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away (divorce) your wives, for from the beginning it was not so.” Jesus then went on to say that if anyone obtained a divorce for a reason other than adultery, that person would be guilty of adultery himself when he remarried. In the Old Testament, the penalty for committing adultery was death.
In short, Moses had provided guidelines for divorce because there was such abuse going on between marriage partners. A husband would abandon his wife and take another, for instance, without making any provision for his first wife. She would be cast aside and desolate, especially if her family would not take her back in. Moses allowed for divorce for three reasons:
1. To protect the sanctity of marriage from something “unclean” that could defile it.
2. To protect the woman from a husband who would just end the marriage and abandon her without a cause.
3. To document a woman’s status legitimately as “divorced” so that she would not be considered an adulteress or a prostitute if her husband “put her away”.
Jesus, as always, responded in a way that not only upheld Old Testament scripture, but also revealed the heart of those who were trying to ensnare Him.
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