Deuteronomy 24:4

She is defiled. Consummation of marriage with a second husband made her unclean to her first husband. For him ever to take her again would be to commit adultery. She was unlawful to him (see Jeremiah 3:1).

Cause the land to sin. That is, by permitting moral depravity. Although God tolerated some things of which He certainly could not approve (see on Deuteronomy 14:26), there were limits beyond which man might not transgress. The “land” is often personified, as though it felt and acted (see Leviticus 18:25; Isaiah 24:5).

Today some individuals refer to Deuteronomy 24:1-4 as a basis for what they are pleased to consider “Christian divorce.” In reality, these verses open to our view the home life of the Jew, in which the taking of a wife was regarded as the acquiring of a piece of property. The husband’s authority over his wife was almost absolute. The purpose of the law here announced was to better the lot of Hebrew women. This law, far from establishing a low moral standard, or approving of one, represented a far higher standard than the cruel customs of the time recognized. The law guaranteed a divorced woman certain rights, and actually protected her from being considered as an adulteress and an outcast. She left her first husband’s home a free woman and a respected member of society, eligible to contract an honorable marriage. The writ of divorce stated that her first husband no longer had any legal claim upon her and that she was in no way obligated to him — she was free to become another man’s wife. Upon marrying again she did not become guilty of adultery, and the rights of her first husband were not infringed upon.

The Mosaic divorce law was instituted, not to annul the ideals of marriage as instituted by God at creation, but because of the “hardness” of men’s hearts (Matthew 19:8). The cast-off, unattached woman’s lot was a deplorable one. The bill of divorce alleviated her unfortunate lot. This law simply recognized the prevailing situation and sought to improve it. This was a law of permission, not one of command. These precise restrictions were designed to eliminate the easy divorce procedure the Hebrews had apparently learned in their association with heathen peoples.

It was against the concept of the wife as property that Christ spoke so emphatically (Matthew 5:27-32; 19:3-9). It had brought great misery and injustice to Jewish womanhood. The school of Hillel, which provided the popular Jewish religious philosophy of the time of Christ, interpreted the expression translated “some uncleanness” (Deuteronomy 24:1) as meaning anything that may have become displeasing to the husband. The stricter, less popular Shammai school defined the “uncleanness” as some proved act of immodesty or adultery. In Christ’s time the Hillel school allowed divorce for such trivialities as the exposure of a woman’s arm in public, the burning of a husband’s meal, or when the husband found another woman more attractive. Of this lax attitude Josephus writes, “He that desires to be divorced from his wife for any cause whatsoever (and many such causes happen among men), let him in writing give assurance that he never will use her again as his wife any more, for by these means she may be at liberty to marry another husband, although before this bill of divorce be given, she is not to be permitted so to do” (Antiquities iv. 8. 23).

The law of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 did not institute divorce, but tolerated it in view of the imperfections of human nature and the low moral concepts of God’s people at that time. To know God’s mind concerning marriage one must not camp at Deuteronomy 24:1-4, but journey back to Genesis 1:27 and 2:24, even as Jesus did (Matthew 5:27-32; 19:3-9). The written counsel of Moses for the people of his day is to be interpreted against the background of his day, not of ours, and ever with the divine ideal in view. Christ lifted men’s eyes once more to that divine ideal ordained in Eden. That first marriage provides the pattern God would have His people follow today.