Deuteronomy 24:3

24:3 If the second husband rejects ¹  her and then divorces her, ²  gives her the papers, and evicts her from his house, or if the second husband who married her dies,

Jeremiah 3:8

3:8 She also saw ³  that I gave wayward Israel her divorce papers and sent her away because of her adulterous worship of other gods. ⁴  Even after her unfaithful sister Judah had seen this, ⁵  she still was not afraid, and she too went and gave herself like a prostitute to other gods. ⁶ 

Matthew 5:31-32

Divorce

5:31 “It was said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give her a legal document.’ ⁷  5:32 But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Matthew 19:7-9

19:7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?” ⁸  19:8 Jesus ⁹  said to them, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of your hard hearts, ¹⁰  but from the beginning it was not this way. 19:9 Now I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another commits adultery.”

Mark 10:4-12

10:4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” ¹¹  10:5 But Jesus said to them, “He wrote this commandment for you because of your hard hearts. ¹²  10:6 But from the beginning of creation he ¹³  made them male and female. ¹⁴  10:7 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother, ¹⁵  10:8 and the two will become one flesh. ¹⁶  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 ¹⁷  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.” ¹⁸ 

[24:3]  ¹ tn Heb “hates.” See note on the word “other” in Deut 21:15.

[24:3]  ² tn Heb “writes her a document of divorce.”

[3:8]  ³ 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.

[3:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “because she committed adultery.” The translation is intended to spell out the significance of the metaphor.

[3:8]  ⁵ 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.

[3:8]  ⁶ 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.

[5:31]  ⁷ sn A quotation from Deut 24:1.

[19:7]  ⁸ tc ‡ Although the majority of witnesses (B C W 078 087 ˹³ 33 Ï sy^p,h) have αὐτήν (authn, “her”) after the infinitive ἀπολῦσαι (apolusai, “to divorce”), a variant lacks the αὐτήν. This shorter reading may be due to assimilation to the Markan parallel, but since it is attested in early and diverse witnesses (א D L Z Θ Ë¹ 579 700 pc lat) and since the parallel verse (Mark 10:4) already departs at many points, the shorter reading seems more likely to be original. The pronoun has been included in the translation, however, for clarity. NA²⁷ includes the word in brackets, indicating reservations regarding its authenticity.

[19:8]  ⁹ tc A few important mss (א Φ pc) have the name “Jesus” here, but it is probably not original. Nevertheless, this translation routinely specifies the referents of pronouns to improve clarity, so that has been done here.

[19:8]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “heart” (a collective singular).

[10:4]  ¹¹ tn Grk “to divorce.” The pronoun has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[10:5]  ¹² tn Grk “heart” (a collective singular).

[10:6]  ¹³ 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.

[10:6]  ¹⁴ sn A quotation from Gen 1:27; 5:2.

[10:7]  ¹⁵ 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.

[10:8]  ¹⁶ 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.

[10:11]  ¹⁷ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “So” to indicate that Jesus’ statement is in response to the disciples’ question (v. 10).

[10:12]  ¹⁸ 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.