Sermon on the Mount

Week 18 –Jesus talks about Divorce

Review

The Sermon on the Mount is the core of Jesus’ yoke and if we want to be true Jesus followers, then we need to understand how to live out his yoke.  The main purpose of the Sermon on the Mount is to show how to live a life that God finds pious, that is, how to live out the righteousness of God here on Earth.  We have looked at the “Principles of the Yoke” by studying the Beatitudes to learn what traits it is that God finds honorable in a person.  Jesus then talked about the “Purpose of the Yoke” by sharing 4 metaphors of how a person following the Yoke would impact his community and his world.

We are now starting on the “Parting of the Yoke” where will see Jesus “fulfilling” the Old Covenant.  In this section he will explore 6 concepts and he will “bind” and “loose” specific practical applications of the covenant to contemporary situations.  

We first looked at the “Thou shall not murder” commandment and gained an understanding of why killing is wrong; all life is created by God in the image of God and is therefore sacred.  The first step up toward the “Peak of Piety” is to adopt a godly perspective on the view of other’s lives.  When we see that each person is created by God in His image and is sacred, we realize that our connection with one another is indeed a gauge for our connection to God.  We saw that to value others leads us toward piety.

Last week we studied the “Thou shall not commit adultery” commandment and learned that the cultural perspectives on sexual relations had stringent bindings on women and men were pretty much given a pass as long as they refrained from relations with a woman who was married, engaged, or had the potential to be in either of those relationships (i.e., a virgin or maiden).  It was thought that men could not control their sexual appetites and therefore, needed the latitude to satisfy themselves through the use of prostitutes.  Jesus attacks this double standard and clarifies the meaning of the Seventh Commandment by binding lusting for any woman with adultery and proving that a man can control his appetites.  We saw that self-control was clearly related to piety and a pious person is one who controls his appetites and is not controlled by them.

Introduction

Christianity is filled with the struggle to adjust the idea of marriage with the reality of living in a sinful world. That struggle makes this very short passage to be one of the most difficult and controversial sections in the Sermon on the Mount.

One of the goals of this study has been to really try and understand the culture and people to whom Jesus is speaking.  Therefore, it is important to note that, marriage, and subsequently divorce, in the ancient world had tones and aspects that are dramatically different than in the modern world. Thus when we study the biblical texts that deal with these issues, then much caution needs to be exercised in applying the concepts. This passage is unquestionably addressing marriage as it was understood in the first century Jewish world.   While, timeless truths emerge from these texts as objectives and expectations of God upon His people for all times, a one-to-one transfer of the surface meanings of the texts is impossible and leads to twisted, false understandings.

Marriage in First Century Israel

First, it is important to note that in the Jewish culture, marriages were generally arranged by the fathers of the two individuals.   The most common arrangement was a marriage between distant relatives, usually cousins. Marriage outside the larger clan was the exception rather than the rule, especially in the Semitic cultures of the Middle East. In general, marriage was a contract between two large family units and the producing of children represented a ‘mixing of the blood’ of the two families, which was intended to bond them together in greater peace and harmony.

There is also some financial aspects of the marriage that need to be explained.  Due to the patriarchal nature of the Jewish culture, women were viewed more as property than as people.  The fathers of the two individuals would negotiate a marriage contract, called a ketubah.  The ketubah outlines the rights and responsibilities of the groom, in relation to the bride.  Specifically, it legally changed the ownership of the woman from her father to her husband and offered financial protection for the wife by stipulating the amount of money due to the wife in the event of the cessation of the marriage, either by the death of the husband or the divorce.

At her husband’s death, or upon divorce, the young Jewish wife went back under the care of her father, or oldest brother. If possible, she would be married off again to someone else. One very distinct aspect of ancient Jewish society was the provision for the community, namely the synagogue, to assume responsibility for the care of widows when no family was available to care for her. In the non-Jewish society of that time, such a widow was ‘on her own’ and often had to resort to prostitution or volunteer slavery in order to survive.

Secondly, Jewish custom did not consider the male an adult, i.e., marriageable’, until his thirtieth birthday. The female became eligible for marriage at puberty in her early teens much like the rest of the ancient world. Thus the age gap between husband and wife in a Jewish home was often 15 years or more. The life-expectancy of the Jewish male was generally the same as males in that world in general. They seldom made it out of their 40s. Thus the usual length of a marriage was less than twenty years before the death of the husband made the young wife a widow.

One can clearly see that there is a far cry from our contemporary marriage customs and views where marriage is seen more as a social and legal contract between two consenting adults of equal stature.  

Divorce in First Century Israel

Divorce in ancient Judaism did not involve a court procedure. Instead, the husband, who alone had the option of divorce, simply handed her a written statement declaring her to be divorced and sent her packing. The document, called a Get in modern Judaism, grows out of the declaration in Deuteronomy 24:1-4.

In Jesus’ day, divorce among Jews was very wide spread, although the grounds for divorce coming out of Deut. 24:1 above were hotly debated. The primary curb on divorce was the terms set up in the ketubah, by the two fathers. Often specific terms regarding either a refund of the dowry in case of divorce or the payment of a morah (bride-price) to be paid in the event of the divorce were set up in the contract. This increased the financial cost of divorce significantly and helped to limit the tendency. But the process of divorce, by not requiring a court process, made divorce relatively simple for the Jewish husband in the ancient world.

The Background

As we now delve into the binding that Jesus is making, it is important to not overlook one major aspect of the situation. Jesus’ summation of the Torah (“it has been said…”) assumes an interpretation of the OT text that was popular in the first century world. The “issue of the day” that was debated among the Jewish scribes of Jesus’ time was whether or not divorce was required when the husband found “something objectionable about her.”

This becomes abundantly clear when Matthew comes back and expands on this topic in Matthew 19:3-12.

The Pharisees who posed the divorce issue to Jesus reflected the dominant command interpretation of Moses’ words (“Why...did Moses command”). Jesus’ response reflects an alternate (and less dominant) interpretation of Moses’ words: “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard.”  Moses didn’t demand men to divorce, but allowed it as a concession to the “hardness of the hearts” of the men.

Jesus quickly presses the issue back to the divine ideal in Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:24 as monogamous marriage of one man and one woman in a life-long commitment. He is refusing to get involved in the scribal debates over the meaning of Deut. 24:1 current in His day.

So, to truly understand Jesus’ words, we must see that these words were a direct response to something Moses said.  We can’t understand Jesus’ response to Moses, without first understanding Moses’ statement.

When we read Deut. 24:1-4 in its entirety, we see that Moses’ words about divorce in this context was given as a curb on reckless divorcing of wives and then remarrying his ex-wife after she had passed through another man. The thrust of his words were to prevent the remarrying of his ex-wife, not be a doctrine on divorce^[1].

The process of handing her a written document declaring her divorced was explicitly to release her from obligations of her marriage so that she would be eligible to remarry. The command aspect was the requirement to provide the woman with a formal document freeing her from her marriage for the purpose of remarriage. In that earlier day, women would normally be sent packing by their husband without any formal statement of being free from the authority of their husband. This made remarriage complex if not impossible for her in that day. Thus Moses’ instructions served to protect the woman and give her the possibility of remarriage.

What can we conclude about the issue of Moses’ words in Deut. 24 and Jesus’ use of them? Let me suggest the following:

1. Moses attempted to curb reckless divorce in his day where women were being ‘passed around’ by men from one to another. He forbid such practice which appears to have been especially common in the Canaanite culture the Israelites moved into in the Exodus.
2. The prescribing of a written document of divorce, i.e., the Get, represents a concern to guarantee the legal rights of the woman. In the Patriarchal era when polygamy was prevalent, no such requirement was present, as the instance of Abraham sending Hagar away illustrates. Thus Moses’ instructions helped protect the Israelite woman against abuse.
3. Jesus acknowledged Moses’ guidelines as a concession to the sinfulness of humanity that prompted the move to divorce. In his reaction to the Pharisaical testing of Him, He pressed the issue back to the original intention of monogamous marriage of one man and one woman in a life-long commitment. He refused to get involved in the scribal debates over the meaning of Deut. 24:1 current in His day.
4. Given the widespread practice of divorce by Jews in Jesus’ day, the scribal debate centered on two aspects of Deut. 24:1.

First, did Moses require or permit divorce? Matthew assumes the ‘requirement’ view, as reflected in “‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce’“ (Mt. 5:31) and “‘Why then,’ they [the Pharisees] asked, ‘did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?’“ (Mt. 19:7).

Secondly, what was the objectionable thing that served as the basis for divorcing the wife in Deut. 24:1? Multiple views of Moses’ words were common in Jesus’ day, but two views were the primary ones.

• The School of Shammia said a man may not divorce his wife unless he has found in her in adultery.
• The  School of Hillel was very  broad and said that even if she did something like burning supper, then it would be objectionable.  Another rabbi (Akiba) said that even if he found another more beautiful than she is, then he could divorce her.

Hillel and Akiba views were much more popular because they allowed for divorce on almost any grounds by the Jewish man. In Matthew’s accounts, he is narrating Jesus’ words against this Jewish backdrop to a initial readership that was also Jewish and would have been very familiar with these debates.

The Binding

First, we see that Jesus comes down on one side of the debate and sides with school of Shammia by only permitting divorce for sexual immorality.

Second, Jesus’ binding on divorce in this passage only applies to men.  Since only the husband could divorce his wife, Jesus does not even speak to women about this issue^[2].  So, for the husband to divorce the wife (apart from the one exception) means that he forces her into adultery. The assumption is that she will remarry since the Jewish bill of divorce allowed her to remarry. For her to remarry means she enters into an adulterous relationship with her second husband.  The different perspective in Mt. 19:9 is that the husband in remarrying commits adultery against his first wife.

A careful reading of the texts leads one to see that, the “sin” does not come into being until the remarriage part.    Moses required a formal document being given to the woman so she could remarry. This protected her from the stigma of being considered ‘unclean’ and thus unfit for marriage. However, Jesus’ words removed this protection and made her situation worse by relegating her to a perpetual state of ‘uncleanness’ apart from relationship with her first husband. Thus she becomes ‘untouchable’ and no other man can marry a divorced woman

It would appear that Jesus is saying, that while divorce is not what God wants for your life, if situations arise where it becomes necessary, than do it.  However, don’t remarry.

Conclusion

Divorce represents a failure in human relationships. Unquestionably, marriage is only between a man and a woman. God’s intention in creation was monogamous marriage of one man and one woman in a life-long commitment. The dissolution of that relationship represents a failure to live up to the divine ideal. Moses’ guidelines acknowledge that humanity doesn’t live in an ideal world, and make concessions for this. But at the same time they sought to protect the rights and value of the woman.

Jesus’ acknowledged this in His comments in Mt. 19:8. In developing a Westernized, Christian view of marriage and divorce, these foundational principles are important, since they served as the foundation for Jesus’ teaching, and for the apostles elsewhere in the New Testament.

This binding moves us toward the peak of piety by reiterating the concept that citizens of the Kingdom focus on building positive relations rather than tearing down relations, this teaching of Jesus urges married couples to work hard at building a strong, healthy relationship in marriage. Divorce represents a serious failure at this point, even though situations will arise where it becomes the ‘lesser of two evils.’