Deuteronomy 24: 1 - 4
A Christian friend of mine had gone through a divorce a few years ago. He was really sad and confused about it. He didn't want the divorce but his wife's actions demanded it. Then, time passed, and he confided in me that he wanted to re-marry her. I counseled against it, saying it is stated that you are not to remarry your wife after you have divorced her. The problem is that I can't site verse and Scripture, so I couldn't tell him where to find it in The Bible.
Today, I found it in the twenty fourth chapter of Deuteronomy:
1) If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house,
2) and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man,
3) and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies,
4) then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again AFTER SHE HAS BEEN DEFILED. That would be detestable in the eyes of the Lord. Do not bring sin upon the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. (NIV)
COMMENTARY
The Commentary I used explains it this way: She was not guilty of adultery, nor was she suspected of it. He divorced her because she was displeasing to him. The divorce to her, gave her license to remarry, as if her first husband had died.
However, the Commentary says that the first husband might have remarried her if she had not married the second one, because by that act of her own, she renounced her first husband forever.
Upon her second marriage, she becomes "defiled" to the first husband. However, if the second husband dies or divorces her, she can go on to marry the third husband and it is not looked upon as adultery.
BUT JESUS said in Matthew 19: 8, 9: "...Moses, confronting the callousness of your heart, let you divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so." 9) But I say to you, "Whoever divorces his wife apart from adultery and will take another, commits adultery, and whoever will take her who is divorced commits adultery." (Aramaic Bible in Plain English)
This confirms the stipulations for divorce. When she is given a certificate of divorce, it is not due to "unchastity". Who ever breaks the union of marriage by relations with another party is guilty of adultery and whoso marries that guilty party after divorce also is guilty of adultery.
Going back to the divorcee who is not guilty of "unchastity", the divorce is allowed because of the callousness of men's hearts. It was to protect the woman from the hardship of endeavoring to carry on in a home where she was unloved and unwanted and might be subjected to cruel treatment. It would be better for her to be allowed to go home to her parents than to be a slave to an unkind husband.
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and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man,
ReplyDeletethat is verse 2
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