Having already addressed the parable of the unmerciful servant back in the story of Samson, we’ll keep moving through to Jesus’s teaching on divorce. However, one thing we never did was wrestle with the remez or drash within that teaching. We do have the tools now, so I challenge you to wrestle with those questions on your own.
Jesus ends up being challenged on the issue of divorce. This is a topic widely discussed in the world of Jesus, and it is brought up more than once in his ministry. In Jesus's day, rabbinical debates were driven by two main schools of thought. One school of thought was driven by the interpretive lens of obedience (more on why and how this worked in a later post) and the voice that led this worldview was a rabbi named Shammai.
Every time in the gospel accounts that Jesus is questioned on a rabbinical debate, Jesus sides with Hillel (and sometimes he even pushes Hillel's stance even further). This happens to be the only argument that he sides with Shammai on. What gives?
This wrestling match will actually be very important for us to properly understand a very important teaching. Divorce is obviously an important and prevalent topic in our culture, and dealing with this teaching appropriately will greatly affect people’s hearts. I have heard Jesus’s positions on divorce wildly abused and the results are incredibly destructive.
Jesus’s first response is to make sure we are getting the first things first:
Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Jesus responds by pointing out that God doesn’t want divorce at all; man shouldn’t be separating what God brings together. But life isn’t this easy, so — with the point being made — they press for more:
“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
What most of us miss, is the context of the argument. The positions held by Shammai and Hillel were taken because of a discrepancy in the Text. Some texts apparently had Deuteronomy 24:1 reading that a man may divorce his wife for ervat dabar. However, other texts stated that the man may divorce his wife for dabar ervat. Apparently some scribe made an error and we have a rare issue within the Text. The Dead Sea Scrolls had one version and the Masoretic Text (which Christians predominately use for our Scriptures) said another.
The order of the words makes a great difference, for the word ervat means “nakedness” and the word dabar means “thing.” If the phrase is dabar ervat, then the phrase means “a thing of nakedness,” which in the Hebrew would imply sexual immorality. Therefore, Shammai claimed that a man was only permitted to divorce his wife for reasons of adultery. However, if it is ervat dabar, then it means “a naked thing,” which in the Hebrew is very ambiguous and could basically be read as “anything out of place.” Hillel took this position. His famous statement is, “If she happens to burn your biscuits in anger, you may hand her a get (divorce certificate).”
Don’t ask me to explain why the progressive, “love your neighbor” rabbi took this stance. Some historians have suggested he must have had one heck of a home life. Others have suggested that he put the responsibility of “loving” on the wife. However, it is also true that Hillel was the rabbi to argue the divorce court should be located on the farthest side of the town, so that the man’s neighbors will try to talk him out of it the whole way there.
Nevertheless, Jesus sides with Shammai and, from his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, we can deduce he taught the issue of divorce wasn’t about the man in the first place. The issue of divorce was about protecting the woman who, in a patriarchal culture, would be left with no provision, belonging, or care. It would be pushing her to the boundaries of the culture and forcing her to fend for herself, now an outsider. Notice Jesus’s words from earlier in Matthew:
“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Notice that Jesus says the man is the one committing the sin.
The disciples are beside themselves in this teaching. They respond with disbelief that Jesus would suggest the man is held to such a standard:
The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”
Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
The way of the Kingdom is the way of love. The way of love is a hard way. Marriage is the most intense experience of dying to self and serving the other.
I have heard and witnessed this passage being used time and time again to condemn divorced parties (mostly women) who were on the “pushed aside” party. We let them know with no uncertain terms that they have disobeyed God through their unacceptable divorce. May God help us to redeem the heart of Jesus in this teaching, who was not trying to establish a moral standard of holiness, but a measure of protection for those pushed to the margins.
In this very conversation, it is easy to see Jesus recognizes the reality of divorces in this life. Because we are broken and selfish and stubborn — because true reconciliation requires two willing parties — divorce will be a reality that we have to deal with. But it should not be taken lightly and it should never be used to oppress other human beings. They should be protected.
And we should help them find healing and restoration.
“Not everyone can accept this word.”
It’s a tough word.
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