Matthew 19:3-6

19:3 Then some Pharisees ¹  came to him in order to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful ²  to divorce a wife for any cause?” ³  19:4 He answered, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator made them male and female, ⁴  19:5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? ⁵  19:6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

¹ tn Grk “And Pharisees.”

² tc ‡ Most mss have either ἀνθρώπῳ (anqrwpw, “for a man” [so א² C D W Θ 087 Ë^1,13 33 Ï latt]) or ἀνδρί (andri, “for a husband” [1424^c pc]) before the infinitive ἀπολῦσαι (apolusai, “to divorce”). The latter reading is an assimilation to the parallel in Mark; the former reading may have been motivated by the clarification needed (especially to give the following αὐτοῦ [autou, “his”] an antecedent). But a few significant mss (א* B L Γ 579 [700] 1424* pc) have neither noun. As the harder reading, it seems to best explain the rise of the others. NA²⁷, however, reads ἀνθρώπῳ here.

³ sn The question of the Pharisees was anything but sincere; they were asking it to test him. Jesus was now in the jurisdiction of Herod Antipas (i.e., Judea and beyond the Jordan) and it is likely that the Pharisees were hoping he might answer the question of divorce in a way similar to John the Baptist and so suffer the same fate as John, i.e., death at the hands of Herod (cf. 14:1-12). Jesus answered the question not on the basis of rabbinic custom and the debate over Deut 24:1, but rather from the account of creation and God’s original design.

⁴ sn A quotation from Gen 1:27; 5:2.

⁵ sn A quotation from Gen 2:24.