Malachi 2:16

2:16 “I hate divorce,” ¹  says the Lord God of Israel, “and the one who is guilty of violence,” ²  says the Lord who rules over all. “Pay attention to your conscience, and do not be unfaithful.”

Matthew 5:31-32

Divorce

5:31 “It was said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give her a legal document.’ ³  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 19:3

19:3 Then some Pharisees ⁴  came to him in order to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful ⁵  to divorce a wife for any cause?” ⁶ 

Matthew 19:1

Questions About Divorce

19:1 Now when ⁷  Jesus finished these sayings, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan River. ⁸ 

Colossians 1:10-11

1:10 so that you may live ⁹  worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects ¹⁰  – bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God, 1:11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for the display of ¹¹  all patience and steadfastness, joyfully

[2:16]  ¹ tc The verb שָׂנֵא (sane’) appears to be a third person form, “he hates,” which makes little sense in the context, unless one emends the following word to a third person verb as well. Then one might translate, “he [who] hates [his wife] [and] divorces her…is guilty of violence.” A similar translation is advocated by M. A. Shields, “Syncretism and Divorce in Malachi 2,10-16,” ZAW 111 (1999): 81-85. However, it is possible that the first person pronoun אָנֹכִי (’anokhi, “I”) has accidentally dropped from the text after כִּי (ki). If one restores the pronoun, the form שָׂנֵא can be taken as a participle and the text translated, “for I hate” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV, NLT).

[2:16]  ² tn Heb “him who covers his garment with violence” (similar ASV, NRSV). Here “garment” is a metaphor for appearance and “violence” a metonymy of effect for cause. God views divorce as an act of violence against the victim.

[5:31]  ³ sn A quotation from Deut 24:1.

[19:3]  ⁴ tn Grk “And Pharisees.”

[19:3]  ⁵ 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.

[19:3]  ⁶ 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.

[19:1]  ⁷ tn Grk “it happened when.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”) is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

[19:1]  ⁸ tn “River” is not in the Greek text but is supplied for clarity. The region referred to here is sometimes known as Transjordan (i.e., “across the Jordan”).

[1:10]  ⁹ tn The infinitive περιπατῆσαι (peripathsai, “to walk, to live, to live one’s life”) is best taken as an infinitive of purpose related to “praying” (προσευχόμενοι, proseucomenoi) and “asking” (αἰτούμενοι, aitoumenoi) in v. 9 and is thus translated as “that you may live.”

[1:10]  ¹⁰ tn BDAG 129 s.v. ἀρεσκεία states that ἀρεσκείαν (areskeian) refers to a “desire to please εἰς πᾶσαν ἀ. to please (the Lord) in all respects Col 1:10.”

[1:11]  ¹¹ tn The expression “for the display of” is an attempt to convey in English the force of the Greek preposition εἰς (eis) in this context.