Divorce and the Bible

“…I hate divorce,” says Yahweh —Malachi 2:16 LSB

The dissolution of the marriage tie, although hated by God, was sometimes inevitable due to men and women’s sinfulness. It was thus strictly regulated for children of Israel by the Mosaic law.

If a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house,

and she goes out of his house and goes and becomes another man’s wife, and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife,

then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before Yahweh, and you shall not bring sin on the land which Yahweh your God gives you as an inheritance. —Deuteronomy 24:1-4 LSB

• The Jews, after the Captivity, were required to dismiss the foreign women they had illegally married against God’s command.

  So now, make confession to Yahweh, the God of your fathers, and do His will; and separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.” Then all the assembly answered and said with a loud voice,

  “This is so! As you have said, so it is our duty to do. …we have transgressed greatly in this matter. …let all those in our cities who have married foreign wives come at set times…until the burning anger of our God on account of this matter is turned away from us.”

  …Among the sons of the priests who had married foreign wives were found of the sons of Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brothers: Maaseiah, Eliezer, Jarib and Gedaliah. 19 They gave their hand in pledge to put away their wives, and being guilty, they offered a ram of the flock for their guilt. —Ezra 10:11-19 LSB excerpt

• Christ limited permission for divorce to adultery. At that time, it seems that it was not uncommon for the Jews to dissolve the union on very slight pretenses (Matthew 19:1-9; Mark 10:2-12; Luke 16:18).

  He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. —Matthew 19:8

  Now it was said, ‘Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce’; but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. —Matthew 5:31-32

  The precepts given by Christ regulate the law of divorce in the Christian Church, not the Mosaic laws.

• Christ’s Apostle Paul explained further…

  But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord,

  that the wife should not leave her husband (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband),

  and that the husband should not divorce his wife.

  But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that

  if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her.

  And a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, she must not divorce her husband. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband. For otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy.

  Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave. The brother or the sister is not enslaved in such cases, but God has called us to peace. For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife? Only, as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, in this manner let him walk. And so I direct in all the churches. —1 Corinthians 7:11-17

More information

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• What does the Bible reveal about Adultery and fornication?
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