Jesus’ Teaching on Divorce: An Old Testament Context

Jesus’ teaching on divorce, as with every other Old Testament topic, constrains the traditional interpretation of the law with a call to love.

³ 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?”

⁴ “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’^[a]5 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’^[b]? ⁶ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

⁷ “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

⁸ Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. ⁹ I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

¹⁰ The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

Matthew 19:3-10

Quick Summary

Even though the law permits/commands divorce, this is not the intention from the beginning. He says that divorce counts as adultery (or a breaking of a covenant), unless the covenant was already broken by porneia (Matthew 5:31-32).

What is Sexual Immorality (Porneia)?

The Old Testament use of porneia would imply that the woman had sex with someone else (acting like a prostitute). The New Testament use of porneia could also implicate his inappropriate sexual behavior (prostituting his body to desire). These were the two primary meanings of porneia (see Chapter 18 of Sacred not Sinful: A New Christian Sexual Ethic).

However, as Jesus repeats this teaching in the context of a question about a man divorcing his woman (Matthew 19:9), the use of porneia in this teaching most likely refers to her sexual activity with someone other than her husband. I can’t think of an example in the Old Testament where the word harlotry applies to a man.

In the Old Testament, death (not divorce) was the prescribed consequence for a woman who had sex with a man who was not her husband (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22:22; see also the example of the woman caught in adultery [John 8:1-11]). Both the man and the woman who committed adultery in this way would be killed. Jesus’ teaching implies that divorce is a viable alternative to the death penalty for this behavior, which is a significant shift from the Old Testament law, though not necessarily from practice. Even in the prophets, the response to adultery was most often public humiliation rather than death.

Death was also the prescribed consequence came about for a “virgin” who had sex with another man while betrothed (Deut 22:23). To understand why I use quotes around this word, see the Sunday (night) School bible study on Polyamory and the Bible Part 5 – Virginity. If the same woman was raped, only the man would be killed (Deut 22:25). It is not clear about whether or not the marriage would be called off, but the stories of Dinah (Genesis 34) and Tamar (2 Samuel 13) demonstrate that she would no longer be counted as a virgin in that social context. She would be counted as a prostitute (Genesis 34:31). Her social status had been defiled or humbled even if she had no choice in the matter.

Authority, Slavery, and Patriarchy

If a married woman and her lovers were not discovered, there was a temple ritual for jealousy that would help her husband confirm that she had not been with another man. “This is the law regarding jealousy when a wife goes astray and defiles herself while under her husband’s authority…” (Numbers 5:29). The purpose of this law was so that the husband could be “free of guilt” (Numbers 5:31). I will need to look further into what kind of guilt this is talking about.

For now, I want to dive more deeply into this idea of the husband’s authority. Jacob’s concubines and the story of Hagar all describe a slave whose child would belong to (be named by) the woman who owned her (see Genesis 16). This practice is codified into law with the example of the slave whose wife and children belonged to the master and not to him (Exodus 21:4). In the case of a slave girl who had been “designated,” not betrothed, or married to another man, the consequence for sex was not death, but a sacrifice at the temple “because she had not been freed” (Leviticus 19:20). Because she had no choice in the matter, the slave girl had no penalties. Only the man had to offer a sacrifice.

All of these examples are my attempt to demonstrate that adultery is not simply a matter of sexual relationships, but of violating the authority that a husband held over a woman in a marriage.

One final example comes from the story of Onan, which provides a fascinating perspective about a sexual relationship where a man did not have this kind of “authority.” The sin of Onan came about because he knew the child of his dead brother’s wife would not be his (Genesis 38:9). He had sex with the widow but refused to give her his seed. Most people today would consider a child of their union to be Onan’s because of his biological role in reproduction. However, the Old Testament understanding of possession was not simply biological. Onan’s contribution of sperm did not matter. So long as the child would bear his brothers name, it wasn’t going to be his child.

“Playing the Whore”: The difference between adultery and sexual immorality

For these reasons – and more that I describe in my book – the term “committing adultery” is used to refer to the breaking of a marriage covenant. The term harlotry is used to refer to non-exclusive sexual relationships. It is not a sin, but a social status. That may be the reason why Jesus referred to porneia and not to moichos in Matthew 19. Moichos (adultery) is unfaithfulness to a covenant of authority (between the woman and her husband, betrothed, or father). Adultery means a violation of this covenant, and the most common way for a wife to do this was for her to have sexual relationships that were not approved by the man who was responsible for her.

Men did not always use this authority well, as seen in the story of Lot who offered to let the men of the city abuse his virgin daughters if they would leave his guests alone (Genesis 19:8). The same thing happened with the man in Judges who also wanted to trade his virgin daughter for a night of peace (Judges 19:24). The laws of Moses recognize the risky position of women under the authority of their fathers and so a rule was created that fathers were no longer allowed to force their daughters into prostitution (Leviticus 19:29).

A woman who had sex with anyone besides her husband would be described as “playing the whore” – the equivalent of the New Testament word, porneia. Even though the woman had the social status of a wife, she was acting like a prostitute – a violation of the social expectations for married women. She was choosing how to express her sexuality instead of letting this belong to the exclusive authority of her husband.

Double Standard for Men

The same standard of sexual exclusivity did not apply to the husband, whose part in the marriage covenant was to provide the woman with food, clothes, and sexual satisfaction (Exodus 21:10). I will be looking to see if there are additional standards for a relationship where the woman was acquired with the social status of a wife or virgin and not as a concubine or maidservant (like described in the Exodus 21 passage). However, the same list of provision can be seen in Hosea 2, where God speaks of his faithfulness to the covenant with Israel by providing food, clothing, and financial abundance for the wife – who broke her part of the covenant by harlotry.

For all of these reasons, the exception clause for porneia/zana (harlotry) that Jesus used in Matthew 19 seems to refer to a woman’s sexual activities outside of the bounds of her husband’s authority. Though, a legitimate argument can be made that Jesus is referring to an inter-racial marriage, which may have been considered sexual immorality under the laws of Moses (for example, see Ezra 10 where the whole nation divorced any woman who was not Jewish).

Divorce and Adultery

In the Old Testament, divorce was not considered adultery, and in the days of Jesus it was practiced as an easy way to marry a new woman. As the Pharisees phrased their question: is it lawful to divorce “for any reason.” See this in-depth post by Marg Mowczko on the context for the Phraisee’s question.

Jesus’ replied by saying the practice of divorce broke the commandment of adultery – even if it was allowed by Moses.

The prescribed penalty for adultery in the Old Testament was death. Perhaps this is why the disciples responded to this teaching by saying “it was better not to marry” (Matthew 19:10). Their response shows the significant weight they gave to adultery, which they now recognized as applicable to the practice of separating from their own wives, not just to sleeping with a woman who belonged to another man.

Now that we have seen the connection between adultery and the violation of relational authority throughout the Old Testament, we can perhaps understand the rationale behind Jesus’ teaching. If the covenant has already been broken by the woman (through porneia), it cannot be broken again by the man (through divorce). However, both of these are the equivalent of adultery.

The behavior of a man who divorced his wife was no better than the behavior of a woman who “played the whore.”

Jesus is equalizing the relational responsibility for men and women…and the implications of this shift are worth exploring further.