<p>10:2 <i>And there came to him Pharisees, who asked him- </i>Presumably &ldquo;there&rdquo;, beyond Jordan. They had maybe heard that He was there because of the rumours of great miracles, and yet they made the effort to go to Him there with their legalistic questions. Their petty legalism contrasts sharply with the wonder of His teaching and extent of His miracles. They tagged along with the crowds, for they &ldquo;also&rdquo; came unto Him.</p><p><i>Is it lawful for a man to send away his wife?- </i>The parallel record in Matthew 18 has the material arranged according to a chiasmic structure see note there. Within that structure, this teaching about divorce is parallel with the Lord&rsquo;s teaching about not despising little ones but rather unconditionally forgiving them (see notes on Matthew 18). It cannot therefore be accidental that there is a word play in the usage of the word&nbsp;<i>apoluo</i>, to &ldquo;put away&rdquo;, because the word is also used concerning forgiveness, the sending away of the sin of another, and releasing them from debt to us. The word has just been used in Mt. 18:27, where the gracious Lord &ldquo;loosed&rdquo; the wicked servant from his huge debt without repentance. And so the question here is whether a man could put away / forgive / release his wife &ldquo;for every cause&rdquo;. In a sense, the man was indeed to release / forgive his wife for every cause, for everything. But of course the Pharisees had in view the sense of sending away in divorce, and not forgiveness. The Lord surely means them to understand that they should send her away- in forgiveness.</p><p><i>For any cause?</i>- The standard interpretation is that the Pharisees were seeking to draw the Lord into taking a position behind&nbsp;either the school of Hillel (that a man might divorce his wife for any reason) or that of Shammai (divorce was allowable only for unfaithfulness). The Hillel school had justified Herod Antipas recent marriage on this basis, and he was likely to crack down on anyone teaching otherwise- this was obviously one reason they sought to lead the Lord into this whole minefield. But if so, the question arises as to why they should raise this issue with Him so apparently &lsquo;out of the blue&rsquo;. If the question was simply as to which rabbinic school the Lord supported on this issue, then it would seem that He quite clearly came down on the side of Shammai- &lsquo;for unfaithfulness&rsquo;. But whenever the Lord was given such questions, He always avoided giving such direct answers but rather elevated the issues to a much higher and yet more essential level. I suggest that what they found so shocking was His teaching about unconditional forgiveness regardless of the sincerity of repentance, and so they came to Him with the case of adultery in marriage- where surely, so they thought, there could be no forgiveness for adultery and in fact Moses commanded that a man divorce his wife in this case. Whichever rabbinic school the Lord supported, He would surely have to admit that there were some sins which could not just be forgiven but must be acted upon in terms of divorce and exclusion from the marriage. Their use of&nbsp;<i>apoluo</i>, to &ldquo;put away&rdquo;, was therefore a conscious allusion to the Lord&rsquo;s usage of the word in 18:27, where the gracious Lord &ldquo;loosed&rdquo; s.w. the wicked servant from his huge debt without repentance. So I would read the Pharisees here as implying: &lsquo;You claim a man must forgive his brother anything without checking out his repentance; but OK, can a man really forgive his&nbsp;<i>wife</i>&nbsp;&ldquo;every cause&rdquo;? And Moses surely did sanction divorce for some reasons, whether you go with Hillel &lsquo;every or any cause&rsquo; or Shammai for adultery&rdquo;. In terms of connection with the Lord&rsquo;s previous teaching, the Lord had taught that if someone sins against you, i.e. a personal offence, then you can drag them through the synagogue discipline system &ldquo;tell it to the&nbsp;<i>ekklesia </i>/ assembled meeting&rdquo;- although the higher level was unconditional forgiveness. For many listeners and readers, that teaching begs the very same question: &ldquo;OK, so far so good, Jesus&hellip; but really, literally, for every cause, in every case&hellip;?&rdquo;. The Pharisees are asking this question, assuming that they have the Lord trapped because Moses teaches divorce for some things. Of course, Moses doesn&rsquo;t &lsquo;teach divorce&rsquo;- there was a higher level. If your wife sinned against you, you could do as Hosea did, and simply forgive her, rather than making use of Mosaic concessions. Hence the Lord&rsquo;s answer is basically that any verses in the Law which might appear to teach divorce are in fact concessions to human weakness and not the ideal standard.</p><p><i>They asked this to test him</i>- Another hint that the source of &lsquo;testing&rsquo; in the wilderness which returned to the Lord later in His ministry was from the Jewish satan / adversary.</p>