Week 3 Day 1
Listen: 
The Law in Moses and Matthew
Matthew 5:31-32
And it has been declared that whoever shall send away his wife, let him give her a divorce. But I say to you, whoever shall send away his wife, outside of the reason of scortation, makes her commit adultery; and whoever shall wed her that is sent away commits adultery.
Genesis 1
26. And God said, Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over the beast, and over all the earth, and over every creeping [thing] that creeps on the earth.
27. And God created man in His [own] image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
28. And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue her; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over every living thing that creeps on the earth.
Genesis 2
18. And Jehovah God said, [It is] not good [that] man1should be alone; I will make for him a help as with him....
21. And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon man, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed the flesh instead of it.
22. And the rib which Jehovah God had taken from man, He built into a woman2 and brought her to man.
23. And man said, This [one, this] time, [is] bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh; for this she shall be called a wife, for this was taken out of a man3.
24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
25. And the two of them were naked, man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
Deuteronomy 5 (also Exodus 20:14, 17)
18. And thou shalt not commit adultery.
21. And thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. And thou shalt not lust after thy neighbor’s house....
Deuteronomy 24
1. When a man has taken a wife and married her, and it be that she does not find grace in his eyes, for he has found a matter of nakedness4 in her; then let him write her a letter of divorce 5, and give [it] into her hand, and send her out from his house.
2. And she goes out from his house, and she may go and be for another man.
3. And [if] the latter man hate her, and write her a letter of divorce and give it into her hand, and send her out from his house; or if the latter man die who took her to himself for a wife;
4. her former husband, who sent her out, may not take her again to be to him for a wife, after she is defiled; for it is an abomination before Jehovah; and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which Jehovah thy God gives thee as an inheritance.
Matthew 19
3. And the Pharisees came to Him, tempting Him, and saying to Him, “Is it permitted for a man to send away his wife for every cause?”
4. And He answering said to them, “Have you not read that He who made [them] from the beginning made them male and female,
5. and said, ‘On this account shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh’?
6. “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What, therefore, God has joined together, let not man put asunder.”
7. They say to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give a document of divorce, and to send her away?”
8. He says to them, “Moses, because of your hard-heartedness, permitted you to send away your wives; but from the beginning it was not so.
9. “And I say to you that whoever shall send away his wife, except over scortation6, and shall wed another, commits adultery; and he who weds her that is sent away commits adultery.”
10. His disciples say to Him, “If the case of the man be so with the wife, it is not expedient to wed.”
11. But He said to them, “All do not take in this word, but [they] to whom it is given.
12. “For there are eunuchs who were so born from the mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of the heavens. He that is able to take it in, let him take it in.”
1 “Man” is a translation of the Hebrew word adham (Adam), usually translated in Latin as homo, hominis, usually meaning a human being but sometimes referring to a male. There is another Hebrew word, ish, translated in Latin as vir, which always means a male. To distinguish it from adham (“man”), we translate it “a man.”
2 AC 151-156 uses the Latin word for “woman” (mulier) here, but in the next verse the Latin word for “wife” (uxor) is used. Hebrew has one word for both “woman” and “wife.” Here and elsewhere, we follow the Latin as to which way to translate this word.
3 “A man” in Hebrew is ish, and the word for “woman” is ishah.
4 “Nakedness is taken in the Word for reproach and evil” (AC 213).
5 Literally, “cutting-off”
6 Adulterous behavior; see Day 3 for a fuller explanation.
Questions and Comments
- There are two parts of the law as given in Matthew 5 and 19. The first is that we may not divorce and remarry “except for scortation,” that is, adultery. (In Deuteronomy 24:1, perhaps scortation is meant by “a matter of nakedness.”) Otherwise, we should “cleave,” i.e., be firmly glued, to our marriage and our married partner.
- The second is that we may not marry someone who has been divorced due to his or her infidelity/scortation (contrary to Deuteronomy).
- How do we not covet our neighbor’s wife or husband?
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