<p>19:9&nbsp;<em>And I say to you</em>- This rubric is usually used when the Lord is replacing commands of Moses with His own higher standard. He appears to be merely repeating the Mosaic teaching- that there was an exception which permitted divorce, namely adultery, but that otherwise, divorce was not be countenanced. But in this case He would appear to have allowed Himself to have been drawn into the debate between Shammai and Hillel, and was coming down directly on the side of Shammai [divorce only for adultery]. This is not His style- the Lord engages with questions thrown at Him by lifting the issues to a different level, rather than answering them on the same level as they were given to Him. Mark's record has the Lord clearly teaching that divorce should not be countenanced for anything, and the disciples respond in amazement that it would be better not to marry rather than sign up for this (:10). Perhaps they held the common chauvinistic view that a wife was almost inevitably adulterous and would likely need to be divorced at some stage in the marriage. The Lord responds to that by saying that He accepted that not all His followers could live by what He was teaching (:11). To understand how &quot;I say unto you&quot; was therefore something radically new and higher than Moses' teaching, we have to therefore include Mark's record of His teaching that there should never be divorce for any reason. He mentions that there should be no divorce &quot;except for&nbsp;<em>porneia</em>&quot; in order to clarify in passing that Hillel's view that Moses allowed divorce for literally anything was not correct. But &quot;I say unto you&quot; suggests He was not merely reiterating Moses' position, but adding something new and more demanding. But we only see what that was by putting Mark's account [no divorce for any reason] together with what we have here in Matthew's. Jewish law in the first century&nbsp;<em>demanded</em>&nbsp;that a man divorce his wife for adultery, and in that sense the Lord&rsquo;s principle that ideally he forgive her rather than divorce her was something radically new.</p>
<p><em>Whoever shall send his wife away</em>- The Lord seems to have in view a situation where a man proactively takes the decision to send his wife away. The implication could be that if he has to send her away, then she actually wishes to remain with him. The language of sending away surely implies she was still living with him. Therefore what is in view is a situation of unforgiveness on the part of the husband, and that is the entire context of this section of teaching which began in Matthew 18. The adultery was therefore a temporary situation and didn't involve the wife moving in with another man. In such a case, this whole passage is not directly relevant. The more general idea in chapter 18 of dealing with personal sins against us is now in chapter 19 focused down to the classic personal offence, the sin against us of a partner committing adultery. And let us note that the whole passage beginning in chapter 18 is speaking of ideal standards, whilst the Lord is prepared to accept lower standards (:11). Let's remember that in 1 Cor. 7 we are challenged that the single life of devotion to the Lord is the highest level, and marriage in itself is a concession to human weakness which most of us have made use of. And overarching all our thinking about this matter, especially in terms of our response to those who may divorce for not very solid reasons, we have the parable at the end of chapter 18. We are to see ourselves as chief of sinners, with an unpayable and huge debt to the Lord, compared to which all sin against us is of small account. We also need to remember that others' behaviour to each other is not a sin against us. The teaching here is very personal- about how we are to respond to personal sin against us, and here in chapter 19 the specific example of adultery within marriage is raised. This teaching is not really about how we should respond to the sins of others (e.g. divorce for the wrong reasons) which we observe from a distance.</p>
<p><em>Except for porneia and shall marry another, commits adultery</em>- This is a more general word than&nbsp;<em>moichao</em>, the word which refers strictly to &lsquo;adultery&rsquo; and which we find used later in this verse and e.g. in 15:19. Indeed&nbsp;<em>porneia&nbsp;</em>appears to be a different category of sexual sin to &ldquo;adultery&rdquo; in Heb. 13:4. Remember how this section is an expansion upon the general teaching in chapter 18 about how to respond to personal offences against us. The word in practice, therefore, refers to whatever unfaithfulness constitutes a personal offence against a marital partner. The word could, therefore, just as well refer to the use of pornography. Pushing for a strict interpretation of the word misses the point- that this teaching is in the context of personal offences and forgiving what needs to be forgiven. Any view other than this ends up having to define the word in terms of the insertion of body parts into other body parts; and yet there are a whole range of sexual, mental and emotional positions which may just as well be the&nbsp;<em>porneia</em>&nbsp;which a partner must forgive. The Lord&rsquo;s use of&nbsp;<em>porneia</em>&nbsp;rather than<em> moichao</em>&nbsp;would appear to be a disagreement with Shammai&rsquo;s school, who taught that divorce was possible strictly for&nbsp;<em>moichao</em>, adultery. In this we see again that the Lord isn&rsquo;t coming down on either side of the Shammai &ndash; Hillel dispute, but rather teaching an altogether higher level.</p>
<p><em>And he that marries a divorced woman, commits adultery</em>- I noted above that &lsquo;sent away&rsquo; [NEV &quot;divorced&quot;] suggests the woman has committed adultery but remains living with her husband. The &ldquo;whoever&rdquo; here may not necessarily be global, as if to say that anyone who marries a divorced woman is an adulterer. Because clearly the Lord recognizes that adultery breaks the marriage bond and He appears to consider that once that is broken, then remarriage is possible- just as the marriage covenant between God and Israel was broken, and He entered into relationship with another wife, the Gentiles, or more exactly, the body of Christ comprised of whoever (Jew or Gentile) who believes in Christ. It needs to be seriously noted that the English word &ldquo;whoever&rdquo; found in many translations doesn&rsquo;t translate any original Greek word in the text. The text literally reads &lsquo;And the one marrying her who is sent away commits adultery&rsquo;. That &lsquo;one&rsquo; in view could well be the man with whom she has had the affair. This reading means that contrary to how some wish to read these words based on the mistranslation &ldquo;Whoever&rdquo;, the Lord is not in fact condemning second marriage. His theme is of forgiveness, and of the spiritual damage done by not forgiving. If a man will not forgive his wife for an isolated act of adultery, then he is likely to lead her towards marrying the man she sinned with and thereby falling deeper into sin. And her husband&rsquo;s lack of forgiveness will have played a part in making her stumble in this way. This is how I would understand the Lord&rsquo;s teaching in Mt. 5:32, that sending away a wife causes her to commit adultery. See on :10&nbsp;<em>The man</em>.</p>
