Matthew 19:01-09 “From the Beginning – Jesus on Divorce”

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 03 Feb 2013

Translation

19:1 Now it came about when Jesus finished these words,
He relocated from Galilee and came into the boundaries of Judea over the Jordan River,

19:2 and many crowds followed Him, and He healed them there.

19:3 Pharisees also came up to Him, testing Him
and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife over any matter?”

19:4 But in answer He said to them,
“Didn’t y’all know that from the beginning The Maker made them male and female,

19:5 and He said, ‘On account of this, a man will leave his father and his mother behind and be attached to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’

19:6 Thus they are no longer two, but rather one flesh. What therefore God paired together, let man stop separating.

19:7 They say to him, “Then why did Moses command to serve up a bill of marriage-annulment and to divorce her?”

19:8 He says to them, “Because Moses, due to your hard-heartedness permitted y’all to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it has not been this way.

19:9 But I’m telling y’all that who ever shall divorce his wife – not on the grounds of sexual immorality – and shall marry another commits adultery, and the man who married a woman who has been divorced is committing adultery.”

Introduction

As we approach Valentines Day with a sermon on the topic of divorce, I’m reminded of the James Taylor song, “Valentines Day:”

“Paper moon, Paper heart, Pink balloon, Work of art.
Al Capone, Bugs Moran… Valentine's Day…

Me and you, you and him, Him and her, us and them:
We keep score. Love is war. Valentine's Day…

Whatever Valentines Day stood for, we sure have made a mess of it! The people of Jesus’ day had also made a mess of marriage with a no-fault divorce system. Divorce had become very common. In Matthew 19, Jesus makes a statement that points us toward how to fix the mess we’re in, but it starts with His departure from Galilee:

Exegesis

19:1 Now it came about when Jesus finished these words, He relocated from Galilee and came into the boundaries of Judea over the Jordan River,

Και εγενετο ‘οτε ετελεσεν ‘ο Ιησους τους λογους τουτους μετηρεν^[1] απο της Γαλιλαιας και ηλθεν εις τα ‘ορια της Ιουδαιας περαν του Ιορδανου

• Jesus has been back in his hometown of Capernaum at the northern tip of the Sea of Galilee for a little while, and during that time He taught about the lost sheep, and church discipline, and – most of all – on forgiveness. Now He seems to have completed His basic curriculum for His disciples and is going to transition into His final push into Jerusalem where He will be crucified.
• So, His departure from Galilee is a significant transition. He won’t come back again until after His resurrection.
• Luke 9:52 appears to also refer to this time of heading toward Jerusalem, and it indicates that Jesus went through Samaria on the way but wasn’t received by the Samaritans.
• As I understand it, Jesus leaves the state of Galilee ruled by Herod Antipas and enters the Roman province of Judea ruled by Pontius Pilate^[2], sticking to the riverfront area near the Jordan.

19:2 and many crowds followed Him, and He healed them there.

και ηκολουθησαν αυτω οχλοι πολλοι και εθεραπευσεν αυτους εκει.

• “Great multitudes^KJV” indicate He enjoyed great popularity.
• And He continued to minister to them in a balanced way of both word and deed. Here it says He healed them, and in the parallel passage of Mk. 10:1 “and He taught them again, like He usually did.” (NAW) Works of mercy and Gospel teaching should go together.

19:3 Pharisees also came up to Him, testing Him and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife over any matter?”

Και προσηλθον αυτω [‘οι^[3]] Φαρισαιοι πειραζοντες αυτον και λεγοντες αυτω^[4] Ει εξεστιν ανθρωπω^[5] απολυσαι την γυναικα αυτου κατα πασαν αιτιαν;

• The Pharisees, unlike the rest of the crowds, did not come to follow Jesus; they came  testing (KJV=tempting) Jesus, hoping to prove Him a fraud and turn the crowds against Him:
• Perhaps they thought they could get Jesus to contradict the law of Moses,
• Or perhaps they thought they could get Him to say something so strict and legalistic that the crowds would recoil and stop following Him.
• Maybe even they thought they could get Him to contradict Himself, since He had already made a statement on divorce back in Matt. 5:27-32, “Y’all heard that it was declared, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ And I myself am saying to you that everyone who looks at a woman for the purpose of lusting after her already has committed adultery with her in his heart… It was also declared, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give a bill of marriage-annulment to her,’  yet I myself am telling you that every one who divorces his wife (except for a matter of sexual immorality), is making her to commit adultery, and whoever happens to marry one who has been divorced is committing adultery.” Now if they could get Jesus to contradict that statement, they could prove Him a fraud.
• “Can a man divorce/put away^KJV his wife for every cause^KJV/ any and every reason^NIV / any reason at all^NAS?”^[6] The context of this question that the Pharisees ask goes back to a decades-old dispute between the Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shamma over the interpretation of Deuteronomy 24, where it says: “When a man takes a wife, and marries her, then it shall be, if she find no favor in his eyes, because he has found a matter of indecency in her, that he shall write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife. But if the latter husband hates her and writes her a bill of divorcement and gives it in her hand and sends her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, who took her to be his wife; her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife…” (Brenton)
• Hillel was a liberal, and he wanted an excuse to make divorce easy, so he looked at the Hebrew phrase there about finding “a matter of indecency in her” and said that the Hebrew text has two words  (ערות דבר) – one word for “matter” and one word for “indecency,” so a divorce could be made on the grounds of indecency (such as discovering that she was not a virgin), or it could be for any other “matter” (such as if you didn’t like her cooking – Hillel’s followers actually said that you could get a divorce if she burned your food!)
• Rabbi Shammah was on the other side of the issue and held that the two words went together, as in “a matter of indecency,” but his opinion was not popular.
• In Jesus’ day, divorce was rampant, and many of the people in that crowd had probably been divorced for frivolous reasons.
• I recall one writer around the time of Christ writing that women measured their lives – not by birthdays but – by marriages and divorces.
• So the Pharisees are asking Jesus, “Is it lawful to have one of these no-fault divorces?”
• If Jesus says, “Yes,” then He can be caught in His contradiction because He didn’t allow for divorce for any reason but adultery back in chapter 5.
• If, however, Jesus says, “No, these no-fault divorces are not lawful,” He’s got a popularity problem on His hands. He will have just accused a large part of the crowd of living in sin, and nobody likes to be told that they’re living in sin.

19:4 But in answer He said to them, “Didn’t y’all know that from the beginning The Maker made them male and female,

‘Ο δε αποκριθεις ειπεν αυτοις^[7] Ουκ ανεγνωτε ‘οτι ‘ο ποιησας^[8] απ’ αρχης αρσεν και θηλυ εποιησεν αυτους

• Notice that the Pharisees are asking Jesus a question about the exegesis of Deuteronomy 24. If I were in Jesus’ shoes, I would turn in my Bible to Deut. 24 and go over it word by word, but that’s not what Jesus does.
• Back when we did our Sunday School series on Genesis, Dr. Zachary reminded us over and over that the beginning of Genesis is foundational for everything in our faith. Jesus goes back to this foundation to answer the question; He goes back to Genesis 1:27 “God created man in His own image... male and female He created them” (NASB).
• This is a very important principle Jesus sets for us here. By going back to Genesis 1 & 2, Jesus is telling us that the way God created things is the way things should be. Our standard for what is right is in the creation ordinances, not primarily the convoluted case laws which come later in the Penteteuch (although they too have their place in God’s good law).
• If you want to know what God’s standard is for marriage, the foundation is in Genesis 1 & 2: God made a man and a woman for each other and put them to-

gether. Any other concept of marriage,

• such as a man and a man,
• or a man and two or three women,
• or a man and a woman with a casual relationship that is not covenantal

is rebellion against the will of God.

• Jesus, in effect, says, “Guys, you should have known the answer to your question. It’s right there in Genesis,” and He goes on to quote Gen. 2:24 verbatim:

19:5 and He said, ‘On account of this, a man will leave his father and his mother behind and be attached to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’

και ειπεν ‘Ενεκεν τουτου καταλειψει ανθρωπος τον πατερα ^[9] και την μητερα και [προσ-^[10]]κολληθησεται τη γυναικι αυτου και εσονται ‘οι δυο εις σαρκα μιαν;

• Since God said that it is not good for man to be alone, and since God made a woman to be his corresponding helper with the intention of putting them together, “therefore^ESV /  for this cause^KJV/for this reason^NAS,NIV,NKJ” we do three things – notice the three verbs in future tense in this verse:

1) A man will leave his parents. This is an exit from dependency, and the establishment of a new household. Beware any man who wants to get married and stay living in his parent’s house.

2) He will [pros]kollethesetai = cleave to^KJV/ be joined to^NAS,NKJ/hold fast [fastened] to^ESV/be united to^NIV – lit. “glued” (Strong & Thayer). It’s used in the Bible to refer to

a) mud literally sticking to people’s shoes or skin, and figuratively to refer to

b) adhering to God and His word, or to certain other people (including a spouse);

c) it’s also used to refer to curses or sickness sticking with someone, or of sticking with an inheritance.^[11]

• By the way, this Greek word “be attached/ joined/ united” is Passive^[12] – in other words, the “gluing together” of a man and wife is done by God, as we see in the next verse, and because it is done by God, it should not be undone by any human agency.

3) The wife is included in the third thing they will do: they will “become one flesh.” You might think that’s an easy thing to do, and in one sense it is easy – 1 Cor. 6:16 says that even a one-night stand with a prostitute creates this “joining” and this “one-flesh” union, but to really live as one unit, a husband and wife both have to do a lot of dying to self and working hard to make unity in that relationship. But they will, because God made them man and wife. Now Jesus comments on these verses in Genesis:

19:6 Thus they are no longer two, but rather one flesh. What therefore God paired together, let man stop separating.

‘Ωστε ουκετι εισιν δυο αλλα σαρξ μια, ‘ο ουν ‘ο θεος συνεζευξεν ανθρωπος μη χωριζετω.

• “Paired/joined together” and “separate/put asunder^KJV are obviously antonyms.
• The Greek word for “joined together”^[13] is a compound of the proposition sun, meaning “together with,” and zeugos, meaning “a pair,” used in the Bible to refer to a brace of pigeons (Lk. 2:24) or a yoke of oxen (Lk. 14:19). Ever since Adam and Eve, God has been “pairing together” men and women in marriage. And once He makes that pairing, Jesus says we’d better keep that marriage together.
• The Greek word for “separate/sunder” is spelled chorizw (like the Mexican sausage), but has kind-of the opposite meaning. This Greek word literally means “to place room between” (according to Strong’s Greek lexicon). It’s often used in the Bible to indicate a person moving away from other people, like a leper who had to separate himself and put distance between himself and the community of healthy citizens (Lev. 13:46).
• This Greek word for “separate” shows up especially in 1 Cor. 7:10-15, “Now to those who have been married, I exhort – not I but rather the Lord – a wife not to be separated from a husband. But if she has already been separated, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. Also a husband is not to dismiss a wife. And to the rest I say – I, not the Lord – if any brother has an unbelieving wife and she is pleased to make a home with him, let him not dismiss her. And if any wife has an unbelieving husband and he is pleased to make a home with her, let her not dismiss her husband. For the unbelieving husband has been made holy by his wife and the unbelieving wife has been made holy by the brother (otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy). But if the unbelieving man divorces himself, let him be divorced; in this the brother or sister has not been bound, yet it is in peace that God has called us.” (NAW)
• The grammar in the last phrase, “let not man separate” is interesting. It is a Present tense command written as a prohibition in the 3^rd person.
• This is one of those commands that Jesus was referring to in the Great Commission when He said, “Teach them to obey all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” (Mt. 28:19).
• And a Present tense prohibition indicates that this separating action has been ongoing, and now it’s time to quit it. Stop separating marriages.
• Think about what that means. What kind of things do we do and say and think that drive wedges between man and wife? Niggling criticism. Bitter resentment. Biting sarcasm. Hesitant distrust. Craven fear. Heavyhanded control. Underhanded manipulation. Selfish demands. Callous nonchalance. Every one of these attitudes (and more) is a seed of divorce, a wedge that will drive distance between persons whom God intended to experience unity. We must nip in the bud every such poison that would threaten our marriage. Stop it!
• This is, of course, a general statement. Just as there are exceptions to marriage in the gift of celibacy, there are exceptions to the prohibition against divorce in the case of adultery and abandonment, and the Pharisees try again to draw Jesus away from the rule back to the exception in Deuteronomy:

19:7 They say to him, “Then why did Moses command to serve up a [writing^KJV/certificate]

bill of [divorce] marriage-annulment and to [put/send away] divorce^[14] her?”

Λεγουσιν αυτω Τί ουν Μωσης ενετειλατο δουναι βιβλιον αποστασιου και απολυσαι αυτην^[15];

• This is what Deut. 24 says, and it appears to be the way that Joseph had planned to divorce Mary back in Mt. 1:19. Now, how will Jesus get out of this one?

19:8 He says to them, “Because, due to your hard-heartedness, Moses permitted y’all to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it has not been this way.

Λεγει αυτοις ^[16] ‘οτι Μωσης προς την σκληροκαρδιαν ‘υμων επετρεψεν ‘υμιν απολυσαι τας γυναικας ‘υμων, απ’ αρχης δε ου γεγονεν ‘ουτως.

• Jesus’ retort uses the very word that God used in Deut. 10:16 to describe the Jews of that day to whom He gave the provision of divorce: “hard-hearted.”
• Like arteries hardened by plaque so that they cannot transport blood through them is called arterio-sclerosis, their hearts have become hard (sklaro-kardia – this is the Greek word here) and unable to love God with all their heart or love their neighbor as themselves.
• Because of this heart deficit, and because marriage was so important to God’s created order, God provided a damage-control measure in the law of Moses, who epetrepsen = lit. “turned over/ suffered^KJV/ permitted^NAS,NIV,NKJ/ allowed^ESV” divorce^[17].
• But this was a relatively recent provision in the history of the world. Marriage had been put into effect around 4,000 B.C., and this provision for divorce had been made around 1,500 B.C. Now Jesus was speaking around 30 A.D. So God had given no provision for divorce for some 2,500 years, then for the last 1,500 years there had been a provision for divorce.
• “From the beginning it has not been this way.” Divorce is a temporary civil provision, not the prescriptive will of God for us from creation. The verb in the Perfect tense here indicates that “The original ordinance has never been abrogated nor superseded, but continues in force.” ~Marvin Vincent, 19^th Century expert on classical Greek
• Divorce was not part of God’s “good” creation. In fact, recent research shows that even so-called “good” divorces (where the parents stay involved in the child’s life and minimize conflict with one another) aren’t as good for children as an intact marriage. In the 2012 study entitled, Does the Shape of Families Shape Faith?^[18], researchers found that:

o “Those raised in happy marriages were more than twice as likely to attend religious services, compared to those raised in good divorces,” and

o “Those raised in happy marriages were more likely to report an absence of negative experiences of God, compared to those raised in good divorces.”

· Other studies report that children born or raised outside of marriage are more likely to suffer from a range of emotional and social problems – including drug use, depression, attempted suicide and dropping out of high school – compared to children in intact, married families... [yet] more than half of births among women under 30 now occur outside of marriage... [Furthermore,] reducing family fragmentation by just 1 percent would save $1.1 billion annually as fewer children repeat grades, are suspended from school, require counseling or attempt suicide^[19].

· No wonder Jesus wasn’t real supportive of divorce! In the next verse, He goes on to nail the most common sin that precipitates divorce:

19:9 But I’m telling y’all that who ever shall divorce his wife – not on the grounds of sexual immorality – and shall marry another, commits adultery, and the man who married a woman who has been divorced is committing adultery.”

Λεγω δε ‘υμιν ‘οτι^[20] ‘ος αν απολυση την γυναικα αυτου ^[21] μη επι^[22] πορνεια και γαμηση αλλην μοιχαται, ^[23]και ‘ο απολελυμενην γαμησας μοιχαται.

1. Now, if you are reading from something other than a King James translation, you may notice that I have added a tag on the end of the verse that is not in your Bible, basically applying the sin not only to the man’s side but also to the woman’s side.
• Compare this to the parallel passage in Mk. 10:12, which does a similar thing, ending with: “…and if she puts away her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
• Jesus’ previous statement in Matt. 5:32 also had a reciprocal ending like that, “… and whoever happens to marry one who has been divorced is committing adultery.” (NAW)
• Although there are three ancient Greek manuscripts which omit this reciprocal tag in Matthew – one of which dates all the way back to the 4^th century, I think the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of including this tag, like the KJV does, as the vast majority of Greek manuscripts support it, including – not just one but – two 4^th Century documents.

• But here’s the point: there is one instance in which a divorce can be considered not to be adultery in God’s eyes, and that is: “except for fornication^KJV/ sexual immorality^NKJ,ESV/ immorality^NAS/ marital unfaithfulness^NIV – the Greek word is porneia.
• Jesus makes His own translation here (λόγου πορνείας) from the Hebrew text of Deut. 24 (ערות  דבר) and does not follow the Septuagint Greek of Deut. 24 (ασχημον πραγμα) – perhaps because the word in the Septuagint could be construed to mean “disfigured” or “disorderly,” and Jesus wanted to make it clear that you couldn’t just get a divorce if you thought you wife didn’t look pretty or if you thought she had committed a social faux pas, so He instead chose a stronger word for prostitution. She had to have truly violated your covenant relationship by committing adultery.
• Please note that Jesus does not require the couple to be divorced, He merely says that a divorce could be allowed. By God’s grace it is possible for an adulterer to repent and stop lusting and committing adultery. By God’s grace it is possible for an offended spouse to forgive even this grievious violation of a marriage covenant. In this way a divorce could be avoided.
• I also do not believe that Jesus is saying that remarriage is always the same as adultery. I believe that what Jesus is saying here is that divorce is not a legal loophole to pursue the lusts of your heart.
• If you are discontent with your husband or wife and you find your heart longing after another man or woman, the fact that you can legally get a divorce is irrelevant in Christ’s court. You’re committing adultery if you got a divorce in order to marry someone else.
• But if you got a divorce because your spouse wanted to sleep with you and keep sleeping around with others and was dragging all kind of harmful influences into your home, and did not respond to your appeals or the appeals of the elders or to the church, and if, out of faithfulness to God you decided that you needed to separate yourself and your children from that marriage, not thinking about marrying anybody else, but trusting God to take care of you, that is not adultery, (nor is marrying such a person adultery when done appropriately).
• Now, what about those who have already gotten a divorce for the wrong reason; what can they do now? As with any sin, they can repent. That will involve seeking forgiveness of offended parties, appropriately addressing harms (and exposures to need) that the spouse and children may experience as a result of the sin, and no longer practicing that sinful behavior. A person who has thus repented may be a member in good standing of the church (1 Cor. 6:9-11). But if they have remarried, they should stay married – another divorce isn’t going to make anything any better.
• Since our heart attitude is what matters to God^[24], it is also important that we do not indulge in divorce mentally either.
• To wish that your spouse was dead is murder in God’s eyes.
• To wish that you were divorced or to imagine what life would be like if you were not married, or to imagine yourself married to some other person is adultery.
• Don’t let those thoughts even feel welcome in your mind. Throw them out! Fight for the sanctity of the marriage God has given you!

Conclusion

Let us follow Jesus and fix the mess we’re in this Valentine’s season:

1. Uphold God’s good creation ordinances (Stay rooted in Genesis, and teach it to others – keep the main thing the main thing in Christianity)
2. Stop separating what God has attached – weed out bad attitudes that push marriage apart like a wedge.
3. Repent of hardness of heart that stops God’s love from flowing through:

· Men: selfish lust – the opposite of self-denying love (Eph. 5)

· Women: fear (1 Pet. 3:6) – which leads to clamor and insubordination, the opposite of a “gentle and quiet spirit” which God highly values.

Like the James Taylor Valentine song said, “Love is war,” but for followers of Christ, it’s not a war between the lovers, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Eph. 6:12, NASB)

Singles, your purity, and couples, your unity is a display of Christ’s love for the church.

Satan hates to see our displays of Christ’s love, and he will fight us tooth and nail on this. We must engage the battle against impurity, selfishness, lust, and fear, and show the world what Christ is like this Valentine’s week!

Let me close with a prayer I wrote when I was a single man meditating on this very passage of scripture: “Lord, you are my strong friend – you have taken place of family or wife while I’m here in college. In a sense, you are more to me than you are to most people. Fulfill me with your fatherhood, and make me wise and prudent, yet friendly with women… Help me wait, Lord, on You. Once I get married, let my relationship be so sweet that we’d never even think of parting – keep us devoted to each other and keep us from adultery… But whatever I do, let my life be totally devoted to you, Lord, for your Church is your bride.”

---

^[1] Only here, and 2Ki. 16:17; 25:11; Psa. 80:8; Mt. 13:53 – it seems to indicate more than just leaving^NIV/ departing^KJV,NAS/ going away^ESV and includes transplanting, transition, and relocating. Note similarity to transition statements in Matt. 13:53, 26:1, and 11:1.

^[2] Thus I interpret “across the Jordan” as on the West side of the Jordan, opposite Antipas’ dominion which included Perea on the East side of the Jordan. That’s the only way I can make sense of “into Judea.” Most scholars, however, seem to interpret this as Jesus being in Perea on the East side of the Jordan.

^[3] In the majority of manuscripts (incl. א and D), and so in Textus Receptus and Byzantine editions, but not in majority of the oldest manuscripts, so not in 1904 Patristic edition or Critical editions of the Greek New Testament. Not a significant difference of meaning: “Pharisees” vs. “the Pharisees.”

^[4] Not found in Critical editions, perhaps because not in א and B, but in the majority of manuscripts (incl D, W, Δ), and thus in Byzantine, Majority, and Textus Receptus editions. The auton three words before makes the referent (Jesus) clear, so the presence or absence of this word does not change the meaning.

^[5] Not in א, Β, L, or Γ, so not in some early Critical editions. It’s included in UBS 3^rd edition and the 1979 Nestle-Aland. Although it would read a little rough without “a man,” it wouldn’t change the meaning.

^[6] This word for cause/reason/matter is the same one Pontius Pilate later used to say, “I find nothing ‘the matter’ with Him,” and it was often used to indicate problems or crimes that a person had done.

^[7] Due to its omission in a few early manuscripts (א, B, D, and L), Critical editions omit. The context of the dialogue here is clear enough that the presence or omission of this word (“to them”) does not change the meaning.

^[8] A few manuscripts (B, Θ, f¹) read the synonym κτισας (“created” in NASB, NIV, and ESV) and Critical editions follow that word. It doesn’t change the meaning of Jesus’ statement, since both words refer to the same Biblical event.

^[9] My 1990 Byzantine edition from Athens adds “autou” here, following the reading of the Septuagint (which puts “autou” after both “father” and “mother”), but it’s not in my 1904 Patristic edition. The addition makes for smoother reading, but the definite articles carry the force of the possessive pronoun, so there’s no difference in translation.

^[10] This is the reading of the Septuagint quote (and its quote in Eph. 5:31) and of the Textus Receptus of Matthew here (and of Critical editions of Mk. 10:7), and Green indicates that it is the majority reading, although I am not so sure, since neither of my Byzantine texts have it, and my Nestle-Aland apparatus does not indicate which reading the majority supports. The simpler form without the prepositional prefix is supported by B, D, W, Θ, and f¹³ (thus the Critical editions), whereas the longer reading is supported by א, C, K, L, Z, Γ, Δ, and f¹. Fortunately it doesn’t made a difference in translation, as all the English versions I’ve consulted use the word “to” in their translation, whether they subscribe to the T.R. or not!

^[11] kollaw in the LXX and W&H-GNT: Deu. 6:13; 10:20; 28:60; 29:20; Ruth 2:8; 2Sa. 20:2; 1Ki. 11:2; 2Ki. 1:18; 3:3; 5:27; 18:6; Job 29:10; 38:38; 41:16,23; Psa. 22:15; 25:21; 44:25; 63:8; 101:4; 102:5; 119:25,31; 137:6; Jer. 13:11; Lam. 2:2; 4:4; Mat. 19:5; Luke 10:11; 15:15; Acts 5:13; 8:29; 9:26; 10:28; 17:34; Rom. 12:9; 1Co. 6:16,17; Rev. 18:5. proskollaw in the LXX & W&H-GNT is clearly synonymous with the same uses plus a meaning of holding on to an inheritance: Gen. 2:24; Lev. 19:31; Num. 36:7,9; Deu. 11:22; 13:17; 28:21; Jos. 23:8; Jdg. 20:45; Ruth 2:21,23; 2Sa. 23:10; Job 41:17; Psa. 73:28; Eze. 29:4; Dan. 2:43; Mark 10:7; Acts 5:36; Eph. 5:31;

^[12] It appears as active and middle in some O.T. texts, so I believe the passive voice should not be overlooked.

^[13] Is only used one other place in the Greek Bible (besides the parallel passage in Mark 10:9), and that is in the first chapter of Ezekiel, where it is used to describe the paired wings on the four mighty angels.

^[14] apostasion is a specialized word in the Greek Bible that refers only to a divorce (only found in Deut. 24:3; Isa. 50:1; Jer. 3:8; Mat. 5:31; 19:7; and Mark 10:4). apolusai is translated “divorce” in all the modern versions in vs. 3, 8, 9, but it can also have other meanings. Modern versions use one of those other meanings here in v.7 because this other specialized word for divorce shows up here.

^[15] Found in the majority of manuscripts, but not in א, D, L, Z, Θ, f¹, Diatesseron, Vulgate, or commentaries by Origen and Augustine, so not in some early Critical editions. (In UBS⁴ and N-A⁴.)  Doesn’t change the meaning, and all the English Bibles I consulted include the word “her.”

^[16] NIV follows the reading of א & Φ, which add “Jesus.” This insertion does not change the subject of the narrative, but no GNT editors consider it part of the original text.

^[17] “…when men’s wickedness could be restrained by no other means, he applied the most tolerable remedy, so that a man might at least bear witness to his wife’s chastity. For the Law was only given for the sake of women so that they should not incur any disgrace y being unjustly rejected.” ~John Calvin

^[18] Source: www.centerformarriageandfamilies.org/shape-of-families

^[19] Source: www.stateofourunions.org/2012/press-release.php

^[20] Omitted in two early Greek manuscripts (B and D), but would not result in a change of meaning.

^[21] The Textus Receptus and 1904 Patristic editions insert ει, but this is not supported by the Majority of manuscripts or Byzantine editions, or any Greek manuscript, as far as I can tell. Its insertion would make for easier reading, but all the English versions I reviewed translate it “except” anyway.

^[22] Although not accepted as original in print editions of the GNT, a significant number of manuscripts (B, D, f¹, and f¹³) follow the synonymous wording of Mt. 5:32 here (“parektos logou porneias”).

^[23] Although Critical editions, following א, D, and L, omit from here to the end of the verse, I think the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of including it, including two 4^th Century documents (p²⁵ & B).

^[24] Matt. 15:19-20 “For out of the heart come evil rationalizations, murders, adulterous affairs, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, [and] blasphemy; the things that profane the man are these. But to eat with unwashed hands does not profane the man.” (NAW)