I think it more tortuous to translate a (non-deponent) passive/middle as an active and in such a manner as makes no sense in its own sentence. 284 The Feinbergs do the same thing in their criticism of my position. Matthew Commentaries & Sermons | Precept Austin If he is just back from a long day it work and very tired it may not be the right time to dump all of your days difficulties on him. This was important, because marriage and family gave protection and provision for women. Matthew 5:31-37 NIV - Divorce - "It has been said, - Bible Gateway And, at no point do I loose contact with Deut. In fact, the section seems to be comments on the last six of the commandments: murder, 21-26; adultery, 27-30; theft, 31-32; false witness, 33-37; coveting and defrauding, 38-42; and then fold backward to the Fifth Commandment in re parents, 43-48.209 The weakest element in this interpretation of the structure of the subsection rests in the fact that the crucial thirty-first and thirty-second verses are missing their you have heard, giving rise to the suggestion that Jesus intended to include them with the teaching on adultery (vv. Lectionary Context Some might see the patristic and Erasmian views as limiting the meaning of porneia to adultery, but their proponents generally define that word sexual infidelity.258 Though they argue long for the inclusion of adultery in porneia,259 they would also include the other sexual offenses, such as homosexuality and bestiality, probably including incest with them as forms of adultery. Be honest and clear in your communication. Together, Herod and Herodias divorced their covenant partners in order to devote themselves to each other. 2 in coming to the translation to be adulterized. Further, at no point do I say that Matthew depended upon either of those texts in choosing the passive form in 5:32a. If Jesus teaching agrees with the Old Testament, then whatever Joseph thought Mary had done to be pregnant must be a species of porneia. But first we must consider the preteritive views idea of porneia. An example of such a use is in Matthew 26:45, where Christ comments about His pending betrayal using the present tense, even though the exact act was yet a bit in the future. There are five major views of this portion of the clause: The first is the inclusive interpretation. He forthwith identifies that form as aorist subjunctive middle, translating the Hebrew imperfect Qal construction of the verb. Try to keep in good physical shape. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. He would certainly have been able to read and speak from the Hebrew scriptures. Thus Paul is legitimately applying the principles of the Law (Exod. Movie? Such activities would, however, have been considered porneia, not against his wife, but against God (cf. And it is difficult to know whether to use Deuteronomy to interpret Matthew, or Matthew to interpret Deuteronomy. A consideration of 5:15 shows that the sense is with the result that (the light is put on the lampstand, with the result that it lightens all in the house). Set your mind on the things above. Cf. We must consider both the lexicon and the prior biblical context in deciding the issue. Cannot that innocent woman realize that to remarry would be to commit adultery and remain celibate for the rest of her lifeliving honorably with her parents family?272. Matthew 5:31 Commentaries: "It was said, 'WHOEVER SENDS HIS WIFE AWAY Laneys arguments are found in Myth on pp. While God may have ''allowed'' divorce, that does not mean He ''approves'' of it. . Matthew, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW | USCCB Play with your children. They were marriages; that is, they had been contracted in the very way that acceptable unions were. It is mentioned in Matthew 5:31-32 (which is our passage today) and is if one side is unfaithful. The verb in Matthew 5:32 (poieo), however, seems to imply more direct causation. With no Pharsaical objection, he lusted after another mans wife (condemned by Matthew 5:27-28), he destroyed his own marriage (condemned by Matthew 5:31-32a), and he destroyed his half brothers marriage (Matthew 5:32b), taking Herodias to himself. The earlier verb is scandalizo, which means cause, obstruct, or offend. Carson notes that its noun form is used originally referring to the trigger of a trap (cf. Divorce is sin However, believers need to aim much higher than just not getting a divorce. Many couples go through life in a practical cold war state. In the case of our infinitive, the voice is passive or middle. Serve her. What is your wifes favorite hobby? In that instance, God tempers His treatment of men by His Son paying the penalty in full and making that payment available to sinful men. Get Your Bible Minute in Your Inbox Every Morning. If these relationships were offensive enough to cause him to tear his clothing, it is probable that he would tear at the relationships verbally. 233 B. Vawter, The Divorce Clauses in Mt 5:32 and 19:9 CBQ 16 (April 1954):160-62. Build up your husband. Matthew 5:31-32 | Jesus Teaching on Divorce - Watermark Matthew 5, Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible, James Burton Coffman's commentary on the Bible is widely regarded for its thorough analysis of the text and practical application to everyday life. Matthew 5:31 - Wikipedia Grammatically, there are other options for the present indicative. It is manifest from the following discourse, that our Lord principally spake of the moral law, several of the precepts of which he afterward explains and vindicates from the corrupt glosses of . Since the Ezra incident was relatively recent (in the whole history of the people), and insofar as Jesus often underscored the teachings of the prophets, it is not at all far-fetched that Jesus wished to include such righteous, disciplinary divorces in the category of those that were not offensive. A second point to make about this grammatical form is that present active does not mean to imply continuous action which never ends, indeed, the present is a moment. 3-12 etparal/les [Desclee de Brouwer, 1959], pp. Dont do it. Rom. July 5 (7/5/2023) - Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening - Bible 2. Dont just say, I am not good at cooking. 1. 22:22-27). How ironic that Murray and others have preserved the exact Pharasaical mistake by insisting that the woman is implicated in adultery. Rather, it is the husband who is guilty of adultery in the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:31 f. Matt. Matthew 5. 71-77; and F. F. Bruce, Paul: The Apostle of the Heart Set Free (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), p 185. 229 Ibid. In the Sermon Jesus clearly states, Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matt. He earned a MA in Philosophy of Religion at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Romans 1 shows this clearly. Yet there is a very good reason for not interpreting a husbands porneia as being grounds for his wife divorcing him. The commenting passage in Matthew 5:32 offers to us another unusual form. Dont leave your clothes and dishes and shoes everywhere. In their Ethics, p. 340, they suggest that the passive should not be translated as a passive since unless it can be justified on grounds of word usage or contextual considerations. They forget that to assert something in disagreement with the normal grammar (passive voice) places the burden of proof on them. Of course, I prefer to translate the clause causes her to be adulterized which, I think, more properly translates the verb as a verb, but I think that Lenskis and Powerss idea is not wholly wrong-headed. 2 Shooting people in the head is horrible. 290 Deponent is what we call a verb which had lost its active form during is linguistic evolution, but which clearly retains an active sense though only a passive form is to be found in the language. The fourth view argues that the purpose of the exception clause is to clarify when the sin of adultery has taken place. Proverbs 18:22, 19:14, 21:9, 21:19 Wisdom on marriage. Understanding Matthew 5:31-32: Divorce | D. L. Webster Share story of the five camel wife. Though at first seemingly supported by the Council of Jerusalems dictates (which appear to have had a similar design), this is unacceptable. This Laney himself seems to admit when he says that porneia can be used in a broad sense in the New Testament to refer to any kind of unlawful sexual activity.263. 2. We know it from verse 23, which tells us that she leaves her husband and brings in an heir by a stranger. This is not a case of divorce (as the woman could not initiate that except in the case of her husbands abusewhich the context seemingly excludes) but of desertion. In pointing this out, Jesus is unraveling a legal interpretation that might have been quite popular among the men listening to him. California - Do Not Sell My Personal Information. How does this apply to you? Although this would readily seem to be far too broad, I shall presently give evidence that a broadened definition of moichos (implicit in porneia) was indeed the intention of our Lord, and that, when that meaning was fully understood by the Pharisees, they sought to challenge Him on the matter, namely, in the Matthew 19 incident. The support for such breadth comes in part from the lexicon. Members of the religious establishment were too satisfied with their economic and political position to raise much objection to this transgression of the Law. After her husband and sons died, the widow Naomi urged her daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, to find new husbands who would provide for them (Ruth 1:8-9). Put another way, it is probably not proper to imply, as the traditional interpretation does, that the man divorces his wife which becomes a basis for his causing her to commit adultery at such a time as she remarries (borrowed from the next saying). Or perhaps we should not see the two as synonyms after all; perhaps it is that the woman who suffers adultery becomes defiled (i.e., morally off-limits) with regard to her hardhearted husband when he allows her to marry another rather than seeking reconciliation. But in this instance, the marriage he destroys is not his own, but that of another man and his wife. Start doing it. To that issue we now turn. The wording could be either of the following: And, thirdly, she commits adultery in fornication and brings in children by a strange man. Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery, the nature of marriage and its obligations is, as a matter of fact, Christenthum und Kirche: The First Age of Christianity and the Church, Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers. For though Heth/ Wenham controvert his use of the Joseph and Mary incident, their objection rings hollow. In fact, the context of John 8 demands that the woman be identified as the actor because it comes in a statement of charges against her. Therefore the fault lies with the husband. Matthew 5:31 - Bible Verse Meaning and Commentary - Bible Study Tools The great question that must be asked in response to each of these views is, what is the support for this definition of the term? But in each of these situations, as shown above, the burden of proof rests upon the translator who contends that the grammar (passive/middle) should be ignored. This participle appears to be used in the attributive position and therefore should be given a relative translation: The one who divorces is the one who is causing It is, therefore, not proper to imply, as many interpreters seem to do, that the divorcing subsequently leads to the causing of the woman to commit adultery, when she remarries. Q. Quesnell supports this view, as do G. J. Wenham and J. Dupont.235 D. A. Carsons critique is telling: the key verb (apoleo) is used twice in the Matthew 19 parallel. The discourses are, respectively, the "Sermon on the Mount" (Mt 5:3-7:27), the missionary discourse (Mt 10:5-42), the parable discourse (Mt 13:3-52), the "church order" discourse (Mt 18:3-35), and the eschatological discourse (Mt 24:4-25:46). Neither does Jesus deny that a woman may legitimately be free from her husband for his intentional failure to provide or for his abuse of her. Conceptually, the traditional interpretation, causes her to commit adultery, involves the idea of an act that becomes the occasion for the woman stumbling into adultery when she remarries. Say lots of kind of words. He then states that it should be translated in the sense of an active verb form (to commit adultery). The loophole was manufactured from the phrase found some indecency in her. By Jesuss day it seems men had come to justify themselves for divorcing their wives without reasonable cause. 21:10-11). Since all things belong to the Lord, nobody should take an oath on any of them. Sometimes she just wants someone to listen to. In the first place, the Old Testament at no point made it such. In short, I find this variation ethically sub-biblical.269. Summarizing what we have learned to this point from structural analysis: Verses 31 and 32 are a clarification of an Old Testament Law, a correcting of a wrong, Pharasaical interpretation. For now, however, we will satisfy ourselves to state that no use of kai seems arguable from the grammar which supports the traditional understanding that the meaning of the first clause awaits the speaking of the second. 22:14-17, which does speak of a woman being unjustly stigmatized as an adulteress. The Sermon on the Mount transitions from Jesus speaking to large crowds to speaking to a crowd that consists of His disciples. To him, the except clause informs us that some divorce, that is, divorce based upon porneia, is not adulterous, for the adultery was already present in the porneia. What does Jesus mean in Matthew 5:33-37 where he's talking about oaths? 31 "It has been said, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.'[ a] 32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. It is not, therefore, in disregard for the antithesis between Jesus saying and the Pharasaical interpretation of Deut. 13:4). Some hold that Jesus is altering the Old Testament Law. 232-33. Play creative imagination games like keeping house, police, firefighters, army, etc. 280 This natural appears to me to be grammatically unnatural.. For those interested in the ordering and other methodological considerations, appendix C provides further information. If a person is morally permitted only to divorce his wife on the grounds of unchastity (and in most instances this would entail adultery), but instead divorces her without these grounds, what does the divorce imply about this woman? Pharisees were constantly seeking to challenge and test Jesus. Play. 5. Given the close relationship of these verbs in the context, one is surprised that the text would not have repeated scandalizo rather than using poieo. There are actually two species of this position. Discussion Questions. Unless Jesus was wrong in His profession of loyalty to the Scripture, we should expect to find that His teachings are entirely consonant with previous revelation. In that case 1 Corinthians 7 applies, which tells the believer to stay with the unbeliever if he is willing, but if the person wants to leave to let him. 9 God blesses those who work for peace, It was God Himself, even the Son of the Highest that was there, and his soul bowed before God. This one will indirectly help your marriage. Second, for Christ to have interrupted His rebuke of Pharasaical leniency regarding the Law to attempt to make the law more stringent than God through Moses made it, affirms Pharasaical poor stewardship and thereby undercuts His previous and subsequent rebuke of the religious leaders of His day. In my view, then, though a divorce that aims at being a fruit of repentance would not be adulterous (because grounded upon the adultery of the marriage itself), we cannot see that this is the primary meaning of Jesus words in Matthew 5:32a. But just as Paul turned to the Gentiles, so too Jesus in His ministry also went to the Gentiles (Matt. It was indeed the blessing that he had got from that Babe which enabled him to bless both God and His parents; but he blesses not the Babe even when he blesses the parents. This verse opens the brief, but much scrutinized, discussion of the issue of divorce . The Greeks seem to have loved participles, and a good number of that verb form are found in key divorce passages. However, neither of Carsons points is convincing to me. That this is implicit is clear once one realizes that Deut 24:1-4 is designed to protect the wife from the husbands hard-hearted actions. Everyone who divorces (apolyo) his wife except for this reason is unrighteous because he makes her commit adultery. It is likely that his adoptive father Joseph would have had work as a tradesman in the nearby Roman city of Sepphoris, which would have required knowing some Greek. 209 This somewhat peculiar order is the same as Jesus employs in the combined parallel accounts of his conversation with the rich young ruler- (Matt 19:16-29/Mark 10:17-30). Daniel and his three friends would surely have adopted a different stance if they had Heth/Wenham to advise them! What is the exception clause (Matthew 5:32; 19:9)? As an infinitive, it is a verbal substantive. Finally, it is indeed interesting to compare Matthew 5:31 and Deuteronomy 24:4 on this matter of difficult verb forms. What Kind of Place Is Jesus Preparing for Us? Murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, and slanders all include evil thoughts, for the text tells us that it is from the heart that such things come. Therefore, it is quite fitting by way of response to the Pharasaical teaching of Deut. This brings us to probably the most telling response to Heth/Wenham. Ye are the light of the world That is, the instruments which God chooses to make use of to illuminate the minds of men; as he uses the sun (to which probably he pointed) to enlighten the world. And they cannot bear it. 4. He denies that He intends to do any such thing (Matt. Jesus said it was because of their hardness of heart that Moses permitted them to do this. Clearly, the ethics of divorce/remarriage were in a state of disarray in the days of Jesus. Certainly it is not normal procedure to use such an exceptional point to overturn the standard rules. After presenting the case for this view, Heth/Wenham reject it for grammatical reasons. Be romantic. We disagree as to which of His statements on the subject came first and as to whether all the statements attributed to Him in the texts of the Gospels are His, as opposed to interpretations by the evangelists or even the early Church.207. After working More, Divorce and Re-Marriage: Recovering the Biblical View. were no longer and could no longer be exercised and the marriage ended in that way. The most able defender of this view is A. Isaksson, who did a noteworthy linguistic study of porneia.242 Though the study contains much valuable information, Isaksson does not make his case. These are the things which defile the man . Make up stories and tell them the stories on the subway and on the bus and while eating dinner.. 5:43-48 The Jewish teachers by neighbour understood only those who were of their own country, nation, and religion, whom they were pleased to look upon as their friends. Are there any other Old Testament passages on divorce? Even best, go shopping for her and buy her something she will like and surprise her with it. The Betrothal (engagement) View: Porneia means a preconsummational breach of chastity. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. That is with a stress more on the state of the action as being complete, rather than durative or continuing actions. The issue in the instruction is not porneia, at least in the usual sense of that word, but, rather, failure to provide and to stay in the covenant, especially the (unsaved) husbands failure to remain with the (believing) wifea matter of failure to provide. Matthew may have originally written all or part of his Gospel narrative of Jesus the Messiah in Aramaic, Hebrew, or Greek. Some might suggest that Jew-Gentile intermarriage might have been proscribed as a concession to the Jewish community. What are some practical things which singles can do to prepare for a strong marriage? Second, being as divorce in those times was not a prolonged legal action, as in our own, but rather a rather succinct procedure, and being that on all interpretations the causing relating to adultery is also a concentrated act, I believe that these verbs are to be interpreted as so-called presents as perfects (presents functioning as perfects). Jesus saw through all of their traps and tricks. It is ironic that there should be so much controversy over the import of the teaching of Jesus on divorce/remarriage. We arrive at the first instance of the celebrated exception clause, except for the cause of unchastity. Many an exegete would wish that it could simply be dismissed and thereby render null whole sets of problems it seems to raise. The Feinbergs objection must glean from another field if it is to be telling. And, thirdly, she is made to suffer adultery in fornication and brings in children by a strange man. They argue that the exception clause may only mean that the divorce of an unchaste woman would not make her an adulteress, for she probably is already an adulteress.239 But whereas Kilgallen removes the judgment of adultery from the divorce, Heth/Wenham do not necessarily do so. For that, the immediate context provides the explanation: when the divorcing takes place. by-Verse Bible Commentary. J. Carl Laney, one of the most conservative scholars to have written on the subject, states: While some would argue that these exceptive clauses are not part of the genuine teaching of Jesus but represent either an adaptation by Matthew or an interpolation by the early church, there are no sound textual arguments against the genuineness of the clauses 227, I agree with Laney that hypothetical alternative readings must be denied in favor of alternatives based in the manuscripts. Many of their challenges were centered on common controversies of that time. The form of a writing of divorcement, as given by Maimonides F7, is as follows: Would you choose to have one of these bills, filled up in proper form, take it in manner F8 following. Dress up for your husband. 260 So W. Baur, W. Amdt, F. W. Gingrich, F. Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Greek and Other Early Christian Literature, 2d ed., revised (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), s.v. Matthew 5 - Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible - StudyLight.org Their point is that the exception clause deals with real marriages, whereas interfaith marriages were possibly seen as only fornicating relationships. This leads us to conclude that Jesus intends to clarify misunderstandings. But, as Summers is quick to add, The time of action in participles is indicated in the relation of the action of the participle to the action of the main verb.224 He goes on to say, The present participle indicates action which is contemporaneous with the action of the main verb. And again, it is sufficient to know that the present participle indicates continuous action which takes place at the same time as the action of the main verb.225 Thus, in our verse, the divorcing of the woman occurs at the time when he causes or makes his wife to experience adultery. There is some controversy on this point. 7. The causing the man does, occurs when the divorcing takes place, not at some subsequent time, such as her speculated remarriage. The believer is to affect the world like salt and like light. He has broken his vows to her to care for her. Jesus is probably silent regarding the defilement of Deuteronomy 24:4 precisely because, having stated that the woman was put away, it was not necessary to reaffirm the obvious, that is, if she remarries she may not subsequently return to the former husband. Likewise it is dubious that Malachi 2 relates to Deuteronomy 24.294. Therefore, it would be an act of adultery to have sex with or marry her. How can singles prepare now so that this doesnt happen to them in the future? Expand. God had intended that only two should be married. There definitely passive form of the verb commit adultery may possibly have an active force. Then you get the kingdom of heaven within you, and others around you also experience it! But here, too, Murray is blocked by the fact that moikeuomena (a noun, which arises from the more basic verb form) may arise from the middle (indicative) rather than the passive form of moikeuo. It may be helpful to divide the illegal marriages posture into two distinct schools: those holding that porneia primarily means incest,248 and those who think it primarily refers to interfaith marriages.249. 246 Heth and Wenham, Jesus, pp. Jesus set high standards for anger and moral purity. We are presented in the text of Matthew 5:32a with a difficult verb form, an infinitive with a passive /middle voice. The divorced woman will not then be made to be an adulteress237 by subsequent remarriage, because the fornication has already rendered her an adulteress. Interprets Mt 24:15 as fulfilled in 70AD. Here Laney ties the context of the Herod-Herodias affair to the exception clause in Matthew 19, arguing that restricting porneia to incest in that passage is all that is needed to give sufficient meaning in light of the historical context. Read more here: 20 examples of what it means to be poor in spirit Blessed are those who mourn Doubtless the words and ideas of the Sermon were rhetorically designed for Jewish disciples ears, but we should guard against making Jesus say things contrary to the teachings of His disciples, to whom He promised the Holy Spirit to lead them into all truth (John 16:23) and to whom He gave the task of discipling the nations, teaching them to observe all that I taught you (Matt. But, some will protest, does not Jesus quote the Law and alter it with His own teaching?213 The answer is no. Adam named her Eve and they came together to unify the relationship and she became his wife. "When one seemed to pity a one-eyed man, he told him he had lost one of his enemies, a very thief, that would have stolen away his heart." (Trapp) No one is saying that the second clause explains the first in the sense of a different wording of the same point. 251 Putting all this in the context of the day in which Jesus addressed the disciples, it would not have sufficed for Herod simply to have sent Herodias away. Some argued that Jewish divorce legislation, as set out in the Talmud, allows a man to divorce his wife should any aspect of her dissatisfy him, and that included how she cooked his food. One thing that is definitely worse than being single is being married to the wrong person. In neither case does the connector function as an introduction to a causing condition, as if translated best by when. Chamberlain cites Matt. It is instructive also to consider the use of kai as a connector in the surrounding saying groups, specifically 5:22 and 39-41. When a couple gets married they are joined together. Answer by J. I. Packer. 24:1-4) involves adultery is highly questionable. Note that get away time is not get away from your wife, but get away with your wife! What are some practical things that husband and wife can do to build up their marriage? Since these sections too are a part of the code, one would think they would be relevant.
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