God Does Not Hate Divorce




Malachi 2:16


1.           God Hates Divorce


From the moment a discussion among Christians moves to the topic of marriage, you can bet that it's only a matter of time before someone comes up with the phrase “God hates divorce”. They will introduce it as a self-evident truism and it will be received with a round of knowing nods and murmurs of agreement from everyone present. After all, everybody knows that Jehovah Himself has said this, and that Jesus confirmed it in the Gospels. That’s why it’s a doctrine—stated or unstated—in most of today’s Churches.

It’s a no-brainer, right? I mean, what could be more obvious and foundational than “what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder”?

Here’s a short excerpt of a sermon by Frontline’s Todd Philips that represents the typical view of divorce in the modern church.



Well, in spite of the sincerity by which it is preached and its apparent scriptural backing, the idea that God hates divorce is a fallacy. It is an error based on faulty, uninformed interpretation by the early English translators of the Bible. Unfamiliar with Hebrew culture and customs, they didn’t realize that Jesus was rebuking the Pharisees for their particularly odious and apostate practice of divorce, rather than for divorce per se. This erroneous understanding of the Lord’s teaching on divorce caused them to mistranslate both Testaments; which in turn caused modern Bible translators and editors to misrepresent God's stance on divorce and allow mistranslations to appear in their Bibles.

So, what have all these Bible translators and interpreters missed?

The short answer to that is: They've missed the importance of the word "book", meaning "document" or "writing", as it pertains to a legal divorce, and thereby misinterpreted the Word of God.

YHWH wasn't saying He hates divorce; He was saying He hates illegal divorce!


2.          Putting Away vs Divorce


Let's see how I arrived at this, by first taking a critical look at the primary proof-text for this doctrine, Malachi 2:16a.

First, the reading from the King James Bible:
For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away:
Now, here is how several modern English versions render this text:
NKJV: For the LORD God of Israel says That He hates divorce

NIV: I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel

NASB: For I hate divorce," says the LORD, the God of Israel

NLT: For I hate divorce!" says the LORD, the God of Israel

So, in our small sample, we have one version with "putting away" and four with "divorce".

Now take a look at the verse in Hebrew (at the top of this page). Notice this word, third from the right on the top line:


That’s the Piel infinitive form of the verb “shalach”, which means “to send off, away, out or forth”. Therefore, out of the above five translations, the one that comes closest to the literal meaning of the original is the KJV.

Of course, we know that words often have semantic or idiomatic meanings as well, and that, in several other places in the KJV, the phrase “putting away (a woman)” was used as an idiomatic reference to divorce (Deu 22:19 & 29; Matt 1:19). So, isn't it safe to assume that shalach is simply a synonym for divorce? The translators of the four modern versions above certainly thought so.

Well, if you think about it for a moment, you’ll see that it doesn't really matter whether shalach is or isn’t synonymous with divorce in this context, the translators should have rendered it literally as “putting away” (or, better, “sending away”). That's because the idiomatic meaning, one way or the other, would be the same in English.

What I mean is, if shalach can mean “to divorce”, then the literal translation “putting away” should be used because "to put away" can mean "to divorce" in English, too; the idiom would therefore be preserved, as well as any other idioms, puns or references that might not be immediately apparent (Well, as much as is possible in a translation anyway).

If, on the other hand, shalach can not mean “to divorce”, then for the sake of accuracy the literal translation “putting away” should definitely be used.

As it turns out, shalach did not mean “to divorce” when originally written; idiomatically or otherwise (although it was certainly interpreted that way by the Rabbis later on).


3.          God's Divorce Process


That being said, however, shalach does have something to do with divorce in Malachi 2:16. It refers to part of the process of getting divorced; the final part of three. It is this link to the divorce process that has resulted in all the confusion.

As the Pharisees were only too happy to point out to Jesus, through the Law given to Moses, Jehovah allowed the Jews to break their marriages (Mat 19:7). They were referring to Deuteronomy 24:1-2. Here is the verse in English from the KJV:
When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him 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.
The Hebrew phrase translated as “some uncleanness” (ערות דבר [ervat davar]) is literally “a nakedness thing”, the meaning of which we know was the subject of widely disparate interpretation long before the Lord’s advent. The Jewish Septuagint writers used the rather tepid Greek term ἄσχημον πρᾶγμα [aschemon pragma], which simply means “an unpresentable thing”; a translation which is almost certainly the result of self-serving, rabbinical eisegesis.

The very least the Hebrew phrase could mean is “a sexually shameful thing”, a lewd and lascivious act, but it could easily refer to coitus constituting adultery (discovered after the fact, since the punishment for being caught in the act of adultery was death for both parties; see Deuteronomy 22:22 and cf John 8:4-5). The meaning of this legitimate reason for divorce will be discussed further below.

In any case, like marriage, we see that divorce is also a codified, God-approved activity.

Now, notice the three-part divorce process God laid down for the Jewish man, after he finds “some uncleanness” in his wife. He must first “write her a bill of divorcement”, then he is to “give it to her”, and finally, he is to “send her out of his house”.

Let’s examine that in the Hebrew text. Here it is starting from “then let him write”.


Literally this says: And he will write to her a book of a cutting off (a divorce) and he will give in her hand and send away her from his house.

As mentioned above, the “putting away”, the thing which YHWH says He hates in Malachi 2:16, is the final third part of the process. The verb shalach can be seen within the second last word veshilechah:

The letter Vav (ו) on the right is a prefix meaning “and”; the letter Hey (ה) at the left is a suffix meaning “her”; giving us “and he will send her away” all in one word.

The Hebrew noun which means divorce is keriytut:


But this noun is preceded by the noun sefer, meaning “book” or “thing written”.


This is what gives us the term “bill of divorcement” (or “letter”; or “writing”); in Hebrew, a sefer keriytut.


So, a man was allowed to break his marriage contract with his wife if he found “some uncleanness” in her and she no longer pleased him. For the divorce to be correct and complete he had to write her a “bill of divorcement”, put it in her hands and then send her out of his house (by extension this included his entire area of protection: his personal property and familial, even tribal, lands). The woman was then free to remarry.

Interestingly enough, there is no mention of the man being free to remarry. This may be because the freedom to marry was never taken away in the first place (hence the existance of Israelite poligyny).

In any case, with this actual, legal divorce process in mind, let’s go back to Malachi 2:16. This time, though, let’s also consider the context in which this verse appears.

A handy summary of the purpose of the Book of Malachi can be found at Wikipedia:
The book of Malachi was written to correct the lax religious and social behavior of the Israelites – particularly the priests – in post-exilic Jerusalem. Although the prophets urged the people of Judah and Israel to see their exile as punishment for failing to uphold their covenant with Yahweh, it was not long after they had been restored to the land and to Temple worship that the people's commitment to their God began, once again, to wane. It was in this context that the prophet commonly referred to as Malachi delivered his prophecy.

Now, the whole of Chapter two of Malachi is a rebuke against the apostate, profane practices of the priests—official and social. They have, as v.2:8 puts it, “departed out of the way” and “caused many to stumble at the law”. Not only were their sacrifices unclean, but they themselves were unclean.

With regards to the marriage covenant, we see in vv.2:13-17 that God is not accepting their sacrifices because they have “dealt treacherously” against the wives “of [their] covenant”—that is, their legal wives. Then, referencing the creation of Adam and Eve by saying “And did not He make one?” (Gen 2:24), God reminds them that the marriage covenant was instituted by Him at the very beginning, even prior to the Law being given to Moses, therefore it is a holy union that applies to both parties; not just the woman. It is at this point He says that He hates “putting away”.

This obviously can’t mean divorce, because He made that legal in Deuteronomy. But by the same token, it can't mean God hates “putting away” (shalach) with regards to divorce, either. Yet that's what the text says!

Well, it therefore can only mean that God hates “putting away” if done on its own, separate from the other two parts of His divorce process; the practice of “putting away” the woman only; without first writing and giving her a bill of divorce.

If you look at Isaiah 50:1 and Jeremiah 3:8, you will see that God follows His own three-part process. In those verses we see that He Himself divorced Israel (the Northern Kingdom) after finding "some uncleanness in her"; going after other gods, or "playing the harlot", which is spiritual fornication and adultery. In both of those verses we find mention of the sefer kariytut and shalach.

And just what was God's sefer kariytut to the Northern Kingdom? The Book of Hosea!
Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts.—Hosea 2:2

4.          Halakhic Apostasy


At some unknown point in time, the ancient Israelites developed the Oral Torah (Oral Law). This was a collection of man-made laws (later said by the Rabbis to have been given to Moses “secretly” on Mount Sinai) based on interpretations and expansions of the written Torah (Mosaic Law). These “laws” added to, reduced or altered completely the Mosaic laws. The resulting combination of both the Oral Law and the Mosaic Law was called the Halakha.

The Halakha's many illegitimate practices and traditions were enforced by the Jewish leaders just as vigorously as the legitimate ones. In fact, today's Orthodox Jews teach that the Oral Torah (written down since 200AD and comprising much of the Talmud) supersedes the Written Torah!

The Jerusalem Talmud

Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for the Oral Torah throughout the Gospels (they were the main proponents of it in His day). It was to this He referred when He accused them of "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" (Mark 7:7). As well, whenever He frames a teaching with "You have heard it said...but I say" He was separating these "commandments of men" from the "Commandments of God".

One of the illegitimate practices of the Halakha was the easy divorce process. According to the School of Hillell, one of the two great Pharisee Schools of the day (the other was the School of Shammai), men were permitted to divorce their wives for any trait or behavior of hers that he didn’t like, rather than solely for sexual misconduct as stipulated in Deuteronomy. This is why the Pharisees, testing Jesus, asked if it was lawful to divorce “for every cause” (literally: “for any reason” in the Greek), and why Jesus added “except for fornication” in His reply (respectively, Matthew 19:3&9). He wasn't creating some new Exception Clause, He was reminding them of the only permissible reason for divorce according to the Law of God.

Jesus also mentions the fornication exception in Matthew 5:32. That word in these two verses gives us a clear and incontrovertable definition of the much disputed phrase “some uncleanness” (ערות דבר [ervat davar]) from Deuteronomy 24:1. The word “fornication” in the KJV is a translation of the Greek πορνεία [porneia]. In the natural sense, the word porneia has several meanings, but they are all forms of “illicit sexual intercourse”. In no way can porneia ever mean anything as mundane as cooking the dinner poorly or having bad breath.

Figuratively, porneia is used to describe going after other gods. A person who has done this has committed spiritual adultery; the very sin that caused God to divorce Israel!

Incidentally, it must be understood that the exception here is not for the putting away, but for the causing of someone to become an adulterer. In no way is Jesus saying that it would be acceptable to divorce a woman without giving her a certificate of divorce if she had engaged in illicit sexual misconduct. That would be tantamount to affirming the Oral Torah; and that is something Jesus never does.

No, what the Lord is saying is, since a woman who has committed fornication is already an adulteress, divorcing her illegally won’t make any difference to her status. Yes, fornication is the only legal grounds for getting a divorce, but the three steps are still to be followed even in those cases.

Although only the School of Hillell expanded the grounds for getting a divorce, all of them allowed men to divorce their wives without putting it in writing. In short, because of the authority given to them by the Halakha, the Pharisees encouraged husbands and wives to divorce and remarry in a manner contrary to the Mosaic Law, which succeeded in not only making the divorcing couple adulterers, but their new spouses as well.


5.          Divorce in the Gospels


When we examine the four divorce pericopes in the Synoptic Gospels (see Matthew 5:31-32, 19:3-12; Mark 10:2-12; Luke 16:18), it is clear that this practice of easy divorce making every one connected with it an adulterer was the very thing Jesus was rebuking the Pharisees for doing and teaching.

Although none of these divorce pericopes is identical, the adultery resulting from the lax divorce rules of the Halakha is included in each and every one. There is no better confirmation that this particular correction to the prevailing practice of divorce was of primary importance.

Matthew 5:32 — But I say unto you, “That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery”.

Matthew 19:9 — And I say unto you, “Whosoever shall put away his wife, except [it be] for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery”.

Mark 10:11-12 — And he saith unto them, “Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery”.

Luke 16:18 — Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from [her] husband committeth adultery.

Something else we notice in the four divorce pericopes, particularly the ones in Matthew and Mark, is that, in order to justify themselves and test Jesus, the Pharisees played word games when challenging Him on divorce. They alternate between “putting away” and “giving a letter of divorcement”; between divorcing illegally and divorcing legally, thereby demonstrating that they were well aware of how they were teaching contrary to the legitimate process of divorce.

The German title says, "A Pharisee in his clothing"

To see this duplicity more clearly, we have to examine the Greek NT. To do that, it makes sense to first acquaint ourselves with the Greek terms used to describe divorce in the NT that correspond to the OT Hebrew terms we saw above.

The first is βιβλίον [biblion], meaning “scroll, book, or a written document". This corresponds to the Hebrew ספר, sefer.

Then we have ἀποστάσιον [apostasion], a divorce; equivalent to כריתות, keriytut.

Thirdly, there is ἀπολύω [apoluo], a verb meaning “to send away” or “to put away”; which corresponds to שלח , shalach.

Finally, we have βιβλίον ἀποστασίου: a “bill of divorcement”; equivalent to ספר כריתות, sefer keriytut

The best way to appreciate how knowing those terms helps us see a distinction hidden by Biblical translators is to examine Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:31 as they are in the KJV and the Greek NT:

It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement.

Ἐῤῥέθη δὲ ὅτι ὃς ἂν ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκα αὑτοῦ, δότω αὐτῇ ἀποστάσιον

By now, the highlighted phrase “it hath been said” should stand out. Because Jesus is saying “it has been said”, rather than “it is written”, we know He is about to discuss something the Pharisees taught from the Oral Torah.

The English phrase “shall put away” is a translation of the single Greek word apoluse, the aorist active subjunctive form of apoluo. This form of the verb caries the sense of an action determined to be done, hence “will send away”, rather than the less-definite sounding “shall” (to my non-Oxbridge ears, anyway).

Not surprisingly, as with the Hebrew shalach, rather than “put, or send away”, most modern versions incorrectly translate the word apoluo as “divorce”. In so doing, they completely hide the fact that the original Greek uses two different and distinct words, obscuring the actual point Jesus is making even more.

As for “a writing of divorcement”, if you look at the Greek, you’ll see that this phrase is also a translation of a single word, apostasion. But, if you look at our list above, you'll see that apostasion means “divorce”, not “a writing of divorce”. For it to mean "a writing", the word biblion needs to be placed in front of it (just as keriytut needs sefer). Clearly, the KJV translators read apostasion as “bill of divorcement”.

Here is a screen grab of the Thayer's Lexicon definition of apostasion found at Blue Letter Bible:


Notice that the first native Greek usage is “defection, of a freedman from his patron”, while the first formal, and therefore primary, definition is “divorce, repudiation”. The second is “a bill of divorce”. But notice between these is this:


There's our biblion apostasiou and sefer keriytot, the literal “Writing of Divorcement”!

The reason Thayer has “a bill of divorce” for his second definition is due to the general usage of apostasion to refer to the entire divorce process. However, given the legalistic nature of Rabbinical debate (natural enough, centered as it was on the Law), it is unlikely that such glaring generalities would be employed to blurr the distinction between “divorce” and “writing of divorcement”.

Furthermore, in the other two verses where apostasion is found, and where the KJV reads “writing of divorcement” and “bill of divorcement” (respectively Matt 19:7; Mark 10:4), the Greek text has biblion apostastiou. Significantly, in both of these verses the Pharisees are telling Jesus what Moses wrote, carefully using the fuller, legal expression.

That last point shows the duplicity of the Pharisees. In those two divorce pericopes, they are testing Jesus: In Matthew 19, the test question is “Is it okay to send a woman away for any reason?" In Mark 10, the question is “Is it okay to send a woman away?” By their own admission several sentences later, the Pharisees show that they themselves know that it is not lawful to end a marriage that way.

Although the wording and order of reply is somewhat different, it is understood that these are two accounts of the same incident. It would be inconceivable that the Pharisees would fight and lose the exact same battle twice. This does not mean that one is more accurate than the other, but that the amount of information being imparted by the Evangelist is geared to his audience. It is universally acknowledged that Matthew was writing to a primarily Jewish audience; Mark to a primarily Gentile one. Therefore Matthew includes the additional test of “for any reason”, the contradictory teachings of two Rabbinical Schools. This would hold little relevence to Marks' Gentile audience.

So Mark includes only the part of the test that is more relevant to his audience: Whether it is okay to just “send away” your wife. That is why Mark's account follows the order it does; he is ordering the information in the Lord's response to the Pharisees in a way best suited to Gentiles unfamiliar with the OT. First the Moses information, then the Adam and Eve reminder, then the result of not following God's divorce process.

Matthew's account, on the other hand, is geared for an audience intimately familiar with both the written and oral Torahs. Notice that in his account it is the Pharisees who bring up Moses as a way to argue what Jesus says about God's intentions for marriage. Matthew also goes on to mention men making themselves eunuchs for the “Kingdom of Heaven's sake”. This would make no sense to Gentiles, because, at that time, only Jews would do anything for the Kindom's sake; especially such a strange thing as sexual abstinence.

In any case, that Mark leaves off the “for any reason” clause, shows the test was in the rest of the sentence. In both accounts the Greek word used is apoluo, “to send away”. One wonders just what they hoped to achieve by asking it. Clearly they hoped to trap Jesus, but in what way is not clear. Perhps, knowing He would resort to the Law, they figured He'd offend so many people by pronouncing their relationships adulterous, that the mob would turn on Him (the Disciples were definitely shocked). That would certainly explain why, instead of going into the adulterous results of the Pharisees' teaching, He begins His rebuke by highlighting their misunderstanding of the institution of Marriage in Genesis.


6.          God Hates Adultery


When God created Eve from the rib of Adam in Genesis 2:22, He brought her to Adam:
And Adam said, This [is] now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
Then God instituted marriage with these words:
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
In Ephesians 5:30-32, the Apostle Paul concludes his teaching on marriage by echoing this passage from Genesis and ends up explaining to us what marriage really is:
For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
So, the first marriage was a shadow of the marriage of Christ and the Church; the Bridegroom and the Bride; God and His People Israel. This is why Malachi, in v2:15, when rebuking the priests about dealing treacherously with their wives, reminded them about the first marriage. This is why Christ, when rebuking the Pharisees about divorce, reminded them about the first marriage.

It was also why Jesus said Moses allowed them to divorce because of the “hardness of their hearts”, meaning the ancient Israelites inability to comprehend the spiritual meaning behind the things in the Word of God, like the first marriage and the commandments. They were carnal beings who had been chosen by God to represent His spiritual values in the world. So, while God clearly intended their unions to represent the Heavenly Union, He knew that their carnality would prevent this. He knew their marriages wouldn’t be perfect, that they would break up. Therefore, in order to preserve the representation of sanctity until the day when the mystery of marriage was revealed, He provided a way for them to break their unions legally.

Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for their Halakha and their illegal divorces, because they stopped His people following His Law regarding marriage. What God had put together, they were separating. Jesus wasn’t referring to the separating of men from women, but of marriage from the Torah.

All along adultery to God was a spiritual act of unfaithfulness, of straying from His Law. His hatred was therefore reserved, not for divorce, but for illegal divorce, the thing which caused adultery.


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