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.
24:5 When a man is newly married, he need not go into 8 the army nor be obligated in any way; he must be free to stay at home for a full year and bring joy to 9 the wife he has married.
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 “go out with.”
9 tc For the MT’s reading Piel שִׂמַּח (simmakh, “bring joy to”), the Syriac and others read שָׂמַח (samakh, “enjoy”).