When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason? “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” – Matthew 19:1-6 (NIV)
A gentleman I once counseled had experienced the tragic death of his beloved and cherished first wife. Perhaps never really recovering from this, his second marriage ended in failure and divorce. As he sat in my office comparing the two experiences, he told me “the divorce was so much more painful than the death”. Everyone who has ever been divorced knows exactly what he means. Other divorcees have described divorce to me as something ‘wretched’, ‘ugly’, and ‘a living hell’. It is natural that Matthew would place a discussion of divorce immediately after Jesus’ teachings on humility and forgiveness (chp 18). In divorce, there is plenty of guilt, shame, and wrongdoing to go around (but, there is also much forgiveness to be had).
This passage tells us the Pharisee’s were trying to “test” Jesus. They were laying a trap and hoping he would take the bait. In that time period there was an intra-Pharisee debate taking place concerning the correct interpretation of Deuteronomy 24:1 [a]. Two prominent “schools” of rabbis existed, each named after a well-known rabbinic teacher. The Shammai school focused on the word “indecent” and said this referred to sexual unfaithfulness. Thus, divorce was granted only in cases of adultery. The Hillel school also focused on that word, but said it should be interpreted broadly. Therefore, they allowed divorce for even trivial offenses such as a wife burning her husband’s food (seriously!). The phrase “for any and every reason” at the end of the question suggest it was possibly a group of Shammai rabbis who posed the question. Possibly after hearing of Jesus’ teaching on unlimited forgiveness they suspected him of being a liberal. Now they want to hear if Jesus will affirm the liberal and more dominant Hillel viewpoint. If Jesus is soft on forgiveness, perhaps they thought he would be soft on divorce as well [b].
By what man intends for evil, God has intended for good. Out of this evil attempt to deceive and trap Jesus comes Christ’s teaching about the beauty, importance, and preciousness of marriage. They sought to weaken his reputation, but the passage that follows has been used to strengthen millions of Christian marriages. Here we see Jesus at his best. The divorcee presents herself to Jesus either as a sinner responsible for the divorce or a wounded victim of it (or both). The Pharisee presents himself to Jesus as a man with wicked and deceitful schemes. Both come wretched, ugly, and intent on living in moral hell. Jesus sees them for who they are while also inviting them to see him as he really is. He is someone who transcends our sinful and limited views. He is holiness, and goodness, and love---and he offers a better way to live.
[a] Deut 24:1 states, “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…”
[b] It is also possible that they were trying to get Jesus to make a politically dangerous remark. The political ruler of the area (Herod Antipas) had recently divorced the daughter of the Nabatean king Aretas in order to marry Herodias (who was already married to another ruler, Herod Philip). If Jesus could be lured into making a negative public statement about divorce, perhaps this could be used to trap him. This seems to be the issue in Mark’s version of the account. This simply underscores how “messy” the subject was in Jesus’ day. Most likely, they knew that if Jesus would state his opinion, it would cause him serious problems of some sort.
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