Divorce in OT

The nature of divorce

Divorce dissolves a marriage

The certificate of divorce was a legal document ending the marriage.

See also Divorce ends the restrictions on a priest’s daughter which were the result of her marriage; Following divorce a husband is no longer responsible for his wife; Divorce properly entered into allows the parties to remarry; ;

Divorce was not God’s original intention

God’s displeasure at those of his people who divorced their Jewish wives to marry foreigners, thus breaking faith with their partners and with God; The Law of Moses did not command divorce, but regulated an existing practice, particularly to protect the wife.

See also ;

Circumstances permitting divorce

Displeasure

Deuteronomy 24:1 NASB95

“When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house,

See also ;

Returning exiles were required to divorce their foreign wives

Ezra 10:10–11 NASB95

Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have been unfaithful and have married foreign wives adding to the guilt of Israel. “Now therefore, make confession to the Lord God of your fathers and do His will; and separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.”

See also

Circumstances where divorce was not allowed

where a husband makes false accusations about his wife’s virginity; where the marriage is contracted following the rape of a virgin

Restrictions on remarriage after divorce

Former partners who marry others

Deuteronomy 24:3–4 NASB95

and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife, then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.

See also

Priests could not marry divorcees

; ;

The divorce between God and Israel

It was due to Israel’s unfaithfulness

Jeremiah 3:6–10 NASB95

Then the Lord said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there. “I thought, ‘After she has done all these things she will return to Me’; but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. “And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also. “Because of the lightness of her harlotry, she polluted the land and committed adultery with stones and trees. “Yet in spite of all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but rather in deception,” declares the Lord.

See also ;

God’s desire for reconciliation

Isaiah 54:4–8 NASB95

“Fear not, for you will not be put to shame; And do not feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced; But you will forget the shame of your youth, And the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. “For your husband is your Maker, Whose name is the Lord of hosts; And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, Who is called the God of all the earth. “For the Lord has called you, Like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, Even like a wife of one’s youth when she is rejected,” Says your God. “For a brief moment I forsook you, But with great compassion I will gather you. “In an outburst of anger I hid My face from you for a moment, But with everlasting lovingkindness I will have compassion on you,” Says the Lord your Redeemer.

See also ; ;