Text -- Deuteronomy 24:1-4 (NET)

24:1 If a man marries a woman and she does not please him because he has found something offensive in her, then he may draw up a divorce document, give it to her, and evict her from his house. 24:2 When she has left him she may go and become someone else’s wife. 24:3 If the second husband rejects her and then divorces her, gives her the papers, and evicts her from his house, or if the second husband who married her dies, 24:4 her first husband who divorced her is not permitted to remarry her after she has become ritually impure, for that is offensive to the Lord. You must not bring guilt on the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Deu 24:1

¹ tn Heb “nakedness of a thing.” The Hebrew phrase עֶרְוַת דָּבָר (’ervat davar) refers here to some gross sexual impropriety (see note on “indecent” in Deut 23:14). Though the term usually has to do only with indecent exposure of the genitals, it can also include such behavior as adultery (cf. Lev 18:6-18; 20:11, 17, 20-21; Ezek 22:10; 23:29; Hos 2:10).

NET Notes: Deu 24:2

¹ tn Heb “his house.”

NET Notes: Deu 24:3

¹ tn Heb “hates.” See note on the word “other” in Deut 21:15.

² tn Heb “writes her a document of divorce.”

NET Notes: Deu 24:4

¹ tn Heb “to return to take her to be his wife.”

² sn The issue here is not divorce and its grounds per se but prohibition of remarriage to a mate whom one has previously divorced.

³ tn Heb “cause the land to sin” (so KJV, ASV).