Matthew 19:3 - Exposition

We have now to listen to our Lord's teaching respecting divorce and marriage. The Pharisees. The article is better omitted. Our Lord was not long left in peace by these inveterate enemies, who, if they could not openly persecute him, might hope to extract something from his words and sentiments which might be used to his disadvantage. They were probably envoys sent from Jerusalem to entrap and annoy him. Tempting him. Trying to get him to give an answer which would in any case afford a handle for malicious misrepresentation. The question proposed concerned divorce. To put away his wife forevery cause; κατα Ì πᾶσαν αἰτι ì αν : quacumque ex causa ; for any cause whatever . This was a delicate question to raise in the domains of Herod Antipas (see Matthew 14:3 , Matthew 14:4 ), and one greatly debated in the rabbinical schools. Our Lord had already twice pronounced upon the subject, once in the sermon on the mount ( Matthew 5:32 ), and again when reasoning with the Pharisees on the due observance of the Law ( Luke 16:18 ). Two opposite opinions were held by the followers of Hillel and Schammai, the heads of antagonistic schools. The school of Hillel contended that a man might divorce his wife for various causes quite unconnected with infringement of the marriage vow, e . g . because he had ceased to love her, or had seen some one whom he liked better, or even because she cooked his dinner badly. The school of Schammai was more strict, and permitted divorce only in case of fornication, adultery, or some offence against chastity. Between these contending parties the Pharisees desired to make our Lord give a decision, thinking that they had fixed him in a dilemma. If he took the popular lax view, they could deride his claims as a Teacher of superior morality; if he upheld the stricter side, he would rouse the enmity of the majority, and possibly, like John the Baptist, involve himself in trouble with the licentious tetrarch. There was a chance also that the high tone which he had already taken might prove to be at variance with Mosaic enactments. The easiness with which divorce was obtained may be seen in Josephus, Who thus writes: "He who for any reason whatsoever (and many such causes happen to men) wishes to be separated from a wife who lives with him, must give it to her in writing that he will cohabit with her no longer, and by this means she shall have liberty to marry another man; but before this is done it is not permitted her to do so" ('Ant.,' Matthew 4:8 , Matthew 4:23 ). Josephus himself repudiated his own wife because he was not pleased with her behaviour ('Vita,' § 76). And Ben-Sira gives the curt injunction, "If she go not as thou wouldest have her ( κατα Ì χεῖρα ì σου ), cut her off from thy flesh,… and let her go" (Ecclesiasticus 25:26).