Prior Book | Prior Chapter | Prior Verse | Next Verse | Next Chapter | Next Book | Viewing NASB and Amplified 2015 | |
NASB | Matthew 19:9 "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery." |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Matthew 19:9 "I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery." |
Subject: Do you see Gill's view as Biblical? |
Bible Note: Dear Searcher, Thank you for answering my questions regarding Deuteronomy 24:1-4. 1. I agree with your answer to question one. In either case (lost favor or hate) clearly there is a lack of love on the part of the husband. (Now, when I mention love, I don't mean the silly, sentimental kind that occupies the minds of so many modern Americans. I mean the kind of love that Scripture teaches us about. The kind that sacrifices itself.) So, in our minds there might be a matter of degree between losing favor and hatred, but it really doesn't matter. The net effect is no love. 2. I agree with your answer to question two. The answer could be fairly complex. However, we would all agree that an abusive husband would be one that does not love his wife. Furthermore, the longer such a man was around the woman, the worse the danger for her. 3. My question number three was poorly phrased. What I was driving at was this: Although not all men who hate a woman are abusers, we would not expect to find any man that loves a woman in the Scriptural sense to BE an abuser (regardless of what he SAYS he FEELS for his wife). Therefore, if a husband were abusive, he would probably hate his wife, or at least "she [would] find no favor in his eyes." (Now it is true that there are examples of men who love their wives in incredible ways in scripture. But clearly, the husbands spoken of in this passage (Deut 24:1-4).) 4. That was a good attempt to answer my question number four. (Honest, I wasn't trying to trap you.) I think your answer was fairly representative of what most people believe. However, think about what the lives of women were like in the time of Moses. If she were adulterous, her life would be in jeopardy. She needed a legal document that left her blameless of adulterous behavior. In fact, the "bill of divorcement" (called a "get" in Hebrew) is required to have the following phrase in it: "No person may hinder you from this day onward and you are completely free from any religious marital obligation to me." You see? The "bill of divorcement" was to protect her! 5. I agree with your answer to my question number five. There is no place in the Law that might prevent a man from harming his wife. God, knowing the hardness of the hearts of some husbands (as we see from Matthew 19:9) provided this means as release mechanism to minimize evil. (Matthew Henry, Albert Barnes, A. R. Fausset, and Israel Abrahams all state this explicitly.) If you actually dig around in the translations you will see great difficulty in rendering the word "indency" (NASB) or "uncleanness" (KJV). It is the Hebrew word "ervah" (Strongs 6172). Even the Jews struggle with what this means, arguing all kinds of weird things, because it is very unclear. However, the concensus tended to boil down to "any cause." Now doesn't that sound familiar? :-) See Matthew 19:3 -- the very question that Jesus is answering! Okay. I hope you begin to understand. Your answers lead me to believe that you do. However, I'm hoping that my comments above put it together for you even more solidly. What John Gill talked about was not so far fetched! Look again at his comment (with your capitalizations): "something that he disliked, and was disagreeable to him, and which made their continuance together in the marriage state very uncomfortable; which led him on to be very ill-natured, severe, and CRUEL to her; so that HER LIFE was exposed to danger, or at least become very uneasy; in which case a divorce was permitted, BOTH for the badness of the man's heart, and in favor of the woman, that she might be FREED from such rigorous usage." A. The husband wants to divorce "for any reason" (something he doesn't like) B. He clearly doesn't love his wife (as we have seen) C. Men who hate their wives are probably, at best, unpleasant to be around for the wife D. Men who love their wives are not abusers, but some men who hate their wives can be E. If they remain together in such a case, the chance of harm to her could increase F. If she is accused of unfaithfulness, her life will be forfeit, or at best, she won't find another husband willing to take her (so she could starve) Sorry for slapping this together like this. (I hope it is cogent!) It came straight off the cuff instead of out of my notes -- so it isn't as smooth I'd like. I'm sorry that I can't spend more time on this. Maybe you will now consider rescinding your trash statement. It really was a rash statement, buddy. In Him, Doc |