Deuteronomy 24:1-4

24:1 If a man marries a woman and she does not please him because he has found something offensive ¹  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 ²  she may go and become someone else’s wife. 24:3 If the second husband rejects ³  her and then divorces her, ⁴  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 ⁵  her after she has become ritually impure, for that is offensive to the Lord. ⁶  You must not bring guilt on the land ⁷  which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

Jeremiah 3:1

3:1 “If a man divorces his wife

and she leaves him and becomes another man’s wife,

he may not take her back again. ⁸ 

Doing that would utterly defile the land. ⁹ 

But you, Israel, have given yourself as a prostitute to many gods. ¹⁰ 

So what makes you think you can return to me?” ¹¹ 

says the Lord.

Jeremiah 3:8

3:8 She also saw ¹²  that I gave wayward Israel her divorce papers and sent her away because of her adulterous worship of other gods. ¹³  Even after her unfaithful sister Judah had seen this, ¹⁴  she still was not afraid, and she too went and gave herself like a prostitute to other gods. ¹⁵ 

Hosea 2:2-4

Idolatrous Israel Will Be Punished Like a Prostitute

2:2 Plead earnestly ¹⁶  with your ¹⁷  mother

(for ¹⁸  she is not my wife, and I am not her husband),

so that ¹⁹  she might put an end to her adulterous lifestyle, ²⁰ 

and turn away from her sexually immoral behavior. ²¹ 

2:3 Otherwise, I will strip her naked,

and expose her like she was when she was born.

I will turn her land into a wilderness

and make her country a parched land,

so that I might kill ²²  her with thirst.

2:4 I will have no pity on her children, ²³ 

because they are children conceived in adultery. ²⁴ 

Mark 10:4-12

10:4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” ²⁵  10:5 But Jesus said to them, “He wrote this commandment for you because of your hard hearts. ²⁶  10:6 But from the beginning of creation he ²⁷  made them male and female. ²⁸  10:7 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother, ²⁹  10:8 and the two will become one flesh. ³⁰  So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 10:9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

10:10 In the house once again, the disciples asked him about this. 10:11 So ³¹  he told them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. 10:12 And if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” ³² 

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).

² tn Heb “his house.”

³ tn Heb “hates.” See note on the word “other” in Deut 21:15.

⁴ tn Heb “writes her a document of divorce.”

⁵ tn Heb “to return to take her to be his wife.”

⁶ sn The issue here is not divorce and its grounds per se but prohibition of remarriage to a mate whom one has previously divorced.

⁷ tn Heb “cause the land to sin” (so KJV, ASV).

⁸ tn Heb “May he go back to her again?” The question is rhetorical and expects a negative answer.

⁹ tn Heb “Would the land not be utterly defiled?” The stative is here rendered actively to connect better with the preceding. The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer.

¹⁰ tn Heb “But you have played the prostitute with many lovers.”

¹¹ tn Heb “Returning to me.” The form is the bare infinitive which the KJV and ASV have interpreted as an imperative “Yet, return to me!” However, it is more likely that a question is intended, expressing surprise in the light of the law alluded to and the facts cited. For the use of the infinitive absolute in the place of a finite verb, cf. GKC 346 §113.ee. For the introduction of a question without a question marker, cf. GKC 473 §150.a.

¹² tc Heb “she [‘her sister, unfaithful Judah’ from the preceding verse] saw” with one Hebrew ms, some Greek mss, and the Syriac version. The MT reads “I saw” which may be a case of attraction to the verb at the beginning of the previous verse.

¹³ tn Heb “because she committed adultery.” The translation is intended to spell out the significance of the metaphor.

¹⁴ tn The words “Even after her unfaithful sister, Judah, had seen this” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit in the connection and are supplied for clarification.

¹⁵ tn Heb “she played the prostitute there.” This is a metaphor for Israel’s worship; she gave herself to the worship of other gods like a prostitute gives herself to her lovers. There seems no clear way to completely spell out the metaphor in the translation.

¹⁶ tn Heb “Plead with your mother, plead!” The imperative רִיבוּ (rivu, “plead!”) is repeated twice in this line for emphasis. This rhetorical expression is handled in a woodenly literal sense by most English translations: NASB “Contend…contend”; NAB “Protest…protest!”; NIV “Rebuke…rebuke”; NRSV “Plead…plead”; CEV “Accuse! Accuse your mother!”

¹⁷ sn The suffix on the noun אִמְּכֶם (’immékhem, “your mother”) is a plural form (2nd person masculine). The children of Gomer represent the “children” (i.e., people) of Israel; Gomer represents the nation as a whole.

¹⁸ tn The particle כִּי (ki) introduces a parenthetical explanatory clause (however, cf. NCV “because”).

¹⁹ tn The dependent volitive sequence of imperative followed by vav + jussive (רִיבוּ, rivu followed by וְתָסֵר, vétaser) creates a purpose clause: “so that she might turn away from” (= “put an end to”); cf. NRSV “that she put away”; KJV “let her therefore put away.” Many English translations begin a new sentence here, presumably to improve the English style (so NAB, NIV, TEV, NLT), but this obscures the connection with the preceding clause.

²⁰ tn Heb “put away her adulteries from her face.” The plural noun זְנוּנֶיהָ (zénuneha, “adulteries”) is an example of the plural of repeated (or habitual) action: she has had multiple adulterous affairs.

²¹ tn Heb “[put away] her immoral behavior from between her breasts.” Cf. KJV “her adulteries”; NIV “the unfaithfulness.”

²² tn Heb “and kill her with thirst.” The vav prefixed to the verb (וַהֲמִתִּיהָ, vahamittiha) introduces a purpose/result clause: “in order to make her die of thirst” (purpose) or “and thus make her die of thirst” (result).

²³ tn Heb “her sons.” English versions have long translated this as “children,” however; cf. KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT.

²⁴ tn Heb “sons of adulteries”; KJV “children of whoredoms.”

²⁵ tn Grk “to divorce.” The pronoun has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

²⁶ tn Grk “heart” (a collective singular).

²⁷ tc Most mss have ὁ θεός (Jo qeo", “God”) as the explicit subject of ἐποίησεν (epoihsen, “he made”; A D W Θ Ψ Ë^1,13 Ï lat sy), while the most important witnesses, along with a few others, lack ὁ θεός (א B C L Δ 579 2427 co). On the one hand, it is possible that the shorter reading is an assimilation to the wording of the LXX of Gen 1:27b where ὁ θεός is lacking. However, since it is mentioned at the beginning of the verse (Gen 1:27a) with ἐποίησεν scribes may have been motivated to add it in Mark to make the subject clear. Further, confusion could easily arise in this dominical saying, because Moses was the previously mentioned subject (v. 5) and inattentive readers might regard him as the subject of ἐποίησεν in v. 6. Thus, both on internal and external grounds, the most probable wording of the original text here lacked ὁ θεός.

²⁸ sn A quotation from Gen 1:27; 5:2.

²⁹ tc ‡ The earliest witnesses, as well as a few other important mss (א B Ψ 892* 2427 sy^s), lack the rest of the quotation from Gen 2:24, “and will be united with his wife.” Most mss ([A C] D [L N] W [Δ] Θ Ë^[1],13 [579] Ï lat co) have the clause. It could be argued that the shorter reading was an accidental omission, due to this clause and v. 8 both beginning with καί (kai, “and”). But if that were the case, one might expect to see corrections in א or B. This can be overstated, of course; both mss combine in their errors on several other occasions. However, the nature of the omission here (both its length and the fact that it is from the OT) argues that א and B reflect the original wording. Further, the form of the longer reading is identical with the LXX of Gen 2:24, but different from the quotation in Matt 19:5 (προσκολληθήσεται vs. κολληθήσεται [proskollhqhsetai vs. kollhqhsetai], πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα vs. τῇ γυναικί [pro" thn gunaika vs. th gunaiki]). The significance of this is that Matthew’s quotations of the OT are often, if not usually, directly from the Hebrew – except when he is following Mark’s quotation of the OT. Matthew in fact only departs from Mark’s verbatim quotation of the LXX in 15:4 and 19:19, both texts quoting from Exod 20:12/Deut 5:6 (and in both places the only difference from Mark/LXX is the dropping of σου [sou, “your”]). This might suggest that the longer reading here was not part of what the first evangelist had in his copy of Mark. Further, the reading without this line is harder, for the wife is not explicitly mentioned in v. 7; the casual reader could read “the two” of v. 8 as referring to father and mother rather than husband and wife. (And Mark is known for having harder, shorter readings that scribes tried to soften by explanatory expansion: In this chapter alone, cf. the textual problems in v. 6 [the insertion of ὁ θεός]; in v. 13 [the replacement of αὐτοῖς with τοῖς προσφέρουσιν or τοῖς φέρουσιν]; in v. 24 [insertion of ἐστιν τοὺς πεποιθότας ἐπὶ χρήμασιν, πλούσιον, or τὰ χρήματα ἔχοντες; and perhaps in v. 2 [possible insertion of προσελθόντες Φαρισαῖοι or similar permutations].) Although a decision is difficult, the preferred reading lacks “and will be united with his wife.” NA²⁷ has the longer reading in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.

³⁰ sn A quotation from Gen 2:24. The “two” refers to husband and wife, not father and mother mentioned in the previous verse. See the tc note on “mother” in v. 7 for discussion.

³¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “So” to indicate that Jesus’ statement is in response to the disciples’ question (v. 10).

³² sn It was not uncommon in Jesus’ day for a Jewish man to divorce his wife, but it was extremely rare for a wife to initiate such an action against her husband, since among many things it would have probably left her destitute and without financial support. Mark’s inclusion of the statement And if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery (v. 12) reflects more the problem of the predominantly Gentile church in Rome to which he was writing. As such it may be an interpretive and parenthetical comment by the author rather than part of the saying by Jesus, which would stop at the end of v. 11. As such it should then be placed in parentheses. Further NT passages that deal with the issue of divorce and remarriage are Matt 5:31-32; 19:1-12; Luke 16:18; 1 Cor 7.