The Verses | Introduction | Greek Lexicon Definitions | Fornication |
Mat 5:32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving [G3924] for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
Mat 19:9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
By way of introduction, let's focus on the teaching of these two verses. First of all neither of these verses is teaching that it is God's will for two people to divorce. We should clarify that the point is made very clearly in both passages that divorce is not God's will. It is a disaster, the result of things NOT BEING GOD'S WILL. Many people seem to think that because the Bible speaks of divorce and of the practice of divorce, that it is approved by God. This is the furtherest thing from the truth. God is against divorce, and He hates it (Mal 2:16).
Next we need to understand the context and teaching of the passage. Although it mentions divorce, the passage is not focused on divorce, but on an absolute prohibition of remarriage of divorced people, placing side by side, the divorcing and remarrying of a divorced person as adultery. Let's look at the larger context in Matthew 5.
Mat 5:27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
Mat 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
Mat 5:29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
Mat 5:30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
Mat 5:31 It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement:
Mat 5:32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
Mat 5:33 Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:
Mat 5:34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:
Mat 5:35 Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.
Mat 5:36 Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
Mat 5:37 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
Now we see a theme running through the text that is important to apply to our interpretation of verse 32. Mat 5:27 speaks of the commandment to not commit adultery, but Christ extends the concept of adultery to include any kind of mental, sexual thoughts towards other women than are not your wife as being the same as physical sex with another woman. This is set into a context of "avoiding hell fire", because such people who do this are adulterers which are not going to see heaven.
Now a second comment on adultery is brought forward. Contrary to popular thought of the day which was that it was okay (i.e. legal in God's sight) for a person to divorce his wife, Jesus presents us with the truth, that he who either divorces his spouse, or he who marries a divorced person, is committing adultery. Mat 5:34 now tells us that we are to fulfill our vows or oaths before the Lord, which obviously refers back to the marriage vows.
The passage in Mat 19:2-10 also supports a similar understanding. Christ is correcting the error in thinking of the Jews that divorce is permitted by God, is acceptable, or is an option for married people. Instead of clarifying "yes it is possible for any reason" or "yes it is possible only in cases of adultery", Christ goes back to Adam and Eve and says that divorce was not in the plan of God for us (Mat 19:4-6). The Jews object that Moses permitted it, and that God spoken through Moses. Jesus again responds with "but from the beginning it was not so" (Mat 19:8). The tenor of the conversation is Jesus condemning divorce, not giving permission or divine approval for divorce.
Mat 5:32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
Mat 19:9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
A lot of the meaning of this passage hangs on the word "except" or "saving"
in the KJV, which is parektos, [Strong's G3924]. The reading of the verse can be
(1) "whosoever shall put away his wife except
for the cause of fornication...", or
(2) "whosoever shall put away his wife even
for the cause of fornication..."
The first reading is probably the preferred from a grammatical standpoint, and most Bible versions and commentaries tend to take this reading or translation, but if we compare this passage with parallel passages from the other gospels,
Mark 10:11 And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her.
Mark 10:12 And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.Luke 16:18 Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.
Rom 7:3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
Mat 19:5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
Mat 19:6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.Mar 10:8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.
Mar 10:9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
What we find then is that parallel passages completely leave out the exception clause. Now if we understand this preposition parektos to mean "even", all the passages would say the same thing. If we take parektos to mean its most common meaning, "except", then we have a conflict of Christ's words and teaching from one gospel to the others, where in some passages there is an exception, and in others there is no exception. If the Mat 5:32 and Mat 19:9 passages simply did not exist, the other passages would present us no problem or conflict of teaching.
As for Matthew 19:9, the preposition is not parektos at all but rather MEI EI, and this text has been altered with the addition of EI which did not begin appearing in manuscripts until Erasmus' Greek edition of the New Testament appeared.
See some people's arguments for this interpretation. Erasmus was openly against any restrictions on divorce and remarriage.
McFall - Exception Clause for Mat 19:9 formal paper
in the case of Matthew 19:9, where a scribe in the 15th century added to his copy of the Greek text the small Greek word EI (‘if’) before the negative MH (‘not’) to change the text to read ‘except’ (because in Greek EI placed before MH becomes ‘except’). Who was the first to add EI to the inspired Word of God? We do not know who did it, but the earliest Greek manuscript to contain the addition does not date earlier than a thousand years after Christ.
How did it get into the Reformers’ Bibles? This we do know. It was through Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), the Dutch humanist. He was not a Reformed Christian. He was brought up in the Catholic Church but, like the Reformers, he became disillusioned with the Catholic Church’s teaching on a number of issues, one of which was their insistence that Jesus did not permit divorce or remarriage. Erasmus was extremely angry at the dogmatic stance of the Church over this teaching. He believed that divorce was justified in the case of adultery, so when he came to produce the first published edition of the Greek New Testament, he deliberately added EI before MH in Matthew 19:9 to allow divorce for adultery despite the fact that the three manuscripts which he used did not contain it. Not content with changing the Greek text, Erasmus also changed the Latin Vulgate, which was the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. The Vulgate read: “And I say to you that whosoever shall put away [Latin: dimiserit] his wife, such as [nisi4 ] for fornication [Latin: fornicationem], and shall marry another, committeth adultery”. Erasmus altered this to read: “And I say to you that whosoever shall repudiate [Latin: repudiauerit] his wife, except [nisi] it be for disgrace [Latin: stuprum], and shall marry another, committeth adultery”. By changing ‘fornicationem’ to ‘stuprum’, Erasmus widened his exceptive clause from the specific sin of fornication, to the general, catch-all phrase of anything that gives ground for “dishonour, disgrace, defilement, unchastity, debauchery, lewdness, and violation,”5 all of which are the meanings given to stuprum in the Oxford Latin Dictionary. Suddenly, Erasmus offered divorce not just on sexual grounds (for fornication), but for any cause that gave rise to dishonour or disgrace, which may not necessarily be sexual, such as abuse or neglect or anything that a partner feels angry about.
So the point is that the addition of the particle "EI" in Greek changed the sense of the word from "even for fornication" to "except fornication", the exact opposite. According to the doctrine of the Harmony of Scripture, that the Scripture does not contradict itself from one place to another, this is a Bible Difficulty if we let it stand as most interpret it ("except for fornication"). We understand the
G3924 parektos parektos {par-ek-tos'}
Meaning: 1) except, with the exception of (a thing) 2) besides
Origin: from 3844 and 1622;; adv
Usage: AV - saving 1, except 1, be without 1; 3
BDAG 5701 parektos
• parekto,j adv. (=pare,k Hom. et al., fr. para,, evk%
.pert. to being different and in addition to something else, w. focus on being
external, besides, outside, abs. cwri.j tw/n p. (sc. ginome,nwn) apart from what
I leave unmentioned or what is external (i.e. sufferings, etc.) 2 Cor 11:28.
. used as prep. w. gen., pert. to something left out of other considerations,
apart from, except for (Dositheus 45, 3 parekto.j evmou/, Lat. praeter me;
Cyrill. Scyth. p. 34, 4 p. sabba,tou=except on the Sabbath; Geopon. 13, 15, 7;
Etym. Magn. p. 652, 18; TestJob 30:5; TestZeb 1:4; Dt 1:36 Aq.) Mt 5:32; 19:9
v.l. (AOtto, Die Eheschdg. im Mt ’39; KStaab, D. Unauflöslichkeit d. Ehe u. d.
sog. ‘Ehebruchsklauseln’ b. Mt 5:32 u. 19:9: EEichmann Festschr. ’40, 435-52,
ZKT 67, ’43, 36-44; HBaltensweiler, D. Ehe im NT ’67, 59-102; GStrecker, ZNW 69,
’78, 52-56. S. also pornei,a 2); Ac 26:29. p. qeou/ without God, leading away
from God D 6:1.—DELG s.v. evx. M-M. EDNT.
Thayer 4051 parektos
parekto,j (for which the Greek writings from Homer down use pare,k, pa,rex);
preposition with the genitive (cf. Winer's Grammar, sec. 54, 6), except; with
the exception of (a thing, expressed by the genitive): Matt. 5:32; 19:9 L WH
marginal reading; Acts 26:29, (Deut. 1:36 Aquila; Test xii. Patr., p. 631;
(`Teaching' 6, sec. 1); Geoponica 13, 15, 7).
adverb besides: ta, parekto,j namely, gino,mena, the things that occur besides or in addition, 2 Cor. 11:28 (cf. our `extra matters'; others, the things that I omit; but see Meyer).*
There is an interpretation of divorce which we need to deal with. Within the Jewish customs and practices, there was a separation of two people that married. It was expected that every couple that marries would encounter their partner as a virgin. As far as the man is concerned, there is really no way to know of this. But when we turn to the woman, a virgin woman would break her hymen the first time she has sex, and this would result in a minor blood lose. The evidence of this blood loss was looked upon as proof of her virginity. After their wedding (honey moon night), the man would want to see the bed sheets, and that would definitely reveal the virginity of the woman or not. If the woman cannot hide this fact, so if she confesses her lack of virginity between the wedding and the first time they have sex, the man could divorce her by "not consummating the marriage". This is considered as "annulling the marriage" and the two are considered as not having been married or by some people, a biblically permitted "divorce". Even though this may have been a legitimate Jewish custom, it is doubtful that this divorce is an accurate representation of divorce as the word is used in the Scripture.
This idea would be that Jesus is giving permission for a separation (divorce) of two engaged people that discover the infidelity of one of the two before the actual wedding and consummation of the marriage.
Another view is presented by this Anabaptist page.
Another understanding of porneia which has gained some acceptance recently is that porneia here is a legal term. In Leviticus 18, various close-kin marriages were forbidden -- a man, for example, was not permitted to marry his aunt or his sister. According to this understanding, the Pharisees had asked a legal question, "Is it LAWFUL for a man to put away his wife for any cause?" Jesus then gave an answer with a legal exception. He said, in essence, "Anyone who puts away his wife, excepting the putting away of an unlawful wife (porneia), and marries another is committing adultery." Support for this view rests in that the term porneia is used in the Septuagint to refer to these unlawful relationships in Leviticus 18. Two New Testament examples of unlawful relationships include Herod, who married his brother's wife and was told "It is not LAWFUL for thee to have thy brother's wife" (Mark 6:18); and the man at Corinth, whose sin of having his father's wife was termed porneia (I Corinthians 5:1). This view, like the espousal view, is consistent with Jesus' basic position: no divorce, no remarriage. It seems a rather obvious exception, however, one that would hardly need mention either to the Jews or to modern readers. Furthermore, no early writer understood the exception clause in this way.