19:1–3 Large crowds follow Jesus from Galilee, and he heals their sick (vv. 1–2). At this time, certain Pharisees “test” Jesus with a rabbinic question about divorce. Mark, who probably writes for a Roman audience, phrases the question in terms that would make sense to Gentiles: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” (Mark 10:2). But Matthew, writing for Jewish readers, states the question in terms of Deuteronomy 22 and 24. As with slavery, Deuteronomy restrains and regulates divorce but does not forbid it.298 Deuteronomy 24 permits a man to divorce his wife, with restrictions. If she has done something shameful, if he writes out a certificate that permits her to remarry, and if he understands that once she remarries, he may never reclaim her, then he may divorce her (Deut. 24:1–4).

The Pharisees understand that God regulates divorce in Deuteronomy 24, but they wonder what misdeeds might legally trigger a divorce. They test Jesus with their question: “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” (Matt. 19:3). Perhaps they hope to ensnare Jesus in a dangerous remark (recall John’s critique of Herod in 14:1–12). Still, they truly debate Deuteronomy 24:1–4: Does it forbid divorce except for great evils, or does it permit divorce “for any cause” the husband deems just (NIV: “for any and every reason”; NJB: “on any pretext whatever”)?

The Pharisees’ debate hinges on a perceived ambiguity in the clause “if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her” (Deut. 24:1). The Pharisees’ had two schools. Followers of Shammai argued that “some indecency” had to be a major offense, especially acts that might indicate sexual infidelity. Followers of Hillel took “some indecency” to signify anything that displeased the husband.299

The Mishnah, a second-century-AD collection of rabbinic wisdom, records the positions known since Jesus’ day: “The House of Shammai say, ‘A man should divorce his wife only because he has found grounds for it in unchastity,’ since it is said, ‘Because he has found in her indecency in anything’” (Gittin 9:10, Neusner translation). This would include acts that suggest possible adultery. It mentions “twirling in the street,” an act that seems innocuous (albeit strange) but signified looseness in an era of cloistered women.

While Pharisees multiplied reasons for divorce and frequently divorced their wives until it became “an open scandal,” the followers of Hillel were especially lax.300 They permitted divorce “‘even if she has spoiled his [food],’ since it is said, ‘Because he has found indecency in her in anything’” (Gittin 9:10, Neusner translation). This might mean that Hillel judged domestic incompetence to be a valid ground for divorce. Or perhaps a failure to keep a holy kitchen led to divorce, since it hampered a man’s quest for holiness. At the extreme, the famed Rabbi Akiva said divorce is permissible “even if he found someone else prettier than she.” He found permission for this in the phrase “she finds no favor in his eyes” (Gittin 9:10, Neusner translation). The intertestamental book Sirach is nearly as loose in 25:26 (NJB): “If she will not do as you tell her, get rid of her.” More literally the KJV reads: “If she go not as thou wouldest have her, cut her off from thy flesh, and give her a bill of divorce, and let her go,” that is, divorce her. So the Pharisees multiplied reasons for divorce.

19:4–6 Jesus’ reply begins rhetorically, “Have you not read . . . ?” (v. 4; cf. 12:3–5; 21:16). The question suggests that the Pharisees study Scripture improperly, looking for rules that permit them to escape an unwanted marriage instead of searching for God’s purposes for marriage, stated in the creation accounts of Genesis 1–2. By citing Genesis, Jesus appeals to the Pharisees, since they held that earlier texts were weightier.

“From the beginning,” Jesus reminds them, God created humanity “male and female” (Matt. 19:4; cf. Gen. 1:27). From the start, humans were sexually complementary. At creation, Adam and Eve were sexual, naked, and married. “God blessed them” and said, “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28; 2:25). The Lord blessed, invited, and commanded men and women to unite and reproduce within the covenant of marriage (Mal. 2:14). This passage corrects those who assert that Jesus never addressed homosexuality or same-sex marriage. It is true that Jesus never explicitly assessed same-sex attraction or same-sex marriage, but in Matthew 19:4–5 he observes that God created mankind male and female and directed them to marry. So he affirms God’s design for marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Jesus continues, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (v. 5). This stipulates the three elements of a healthy marriage: a family unit, a personal bond, and a sexual union. If a man leaves father and mother, then the bond between husband and wife supersedes all others, especially that between parent and child. In Israel, a new couple commonly lived with the husband’s parents.301 But the foundational character of marriage led Moses to direct husbands to leave their families, even as wives left theirs. A man must not place his wife in his father’s house and so under his father’s authority. He must create physical and emotional space for his new family. (Wedding ceremonies embody this in the giving of the bride. When a father gives his daughter’s hand to her husband, she leaves his care and authority.)

“Hold fast” translates kollēthēsetai, literally “be glued.” A well-married couple will not break their union. They are companions for life, affectionate and faithful, constantly strengthening their bonds and repairing small breaches. They pursue what older wedding vows called “troth,” the fidelity, reliability, stability, and loyalty that endures unconditionally.302 The pledge of lifelong fidelity logically precedes the sexual union, since it creates the context for intimacy and procreation. This union is sexual, as “one flesh” indicates. Leaving, holding fast, and becoming one flesh encompass every aspect of the union: emotional, volitional, mental, physical, social, spiritual, sexual, financial, even geographical.

Since husband and wife have become one flesh, and since God’s action lies behind a human union, no man has the right to destroy that union (v. 6). Because God’s law and presence support and seal marriages, he does not permit disciples to nullify their marriage vows as an act of naked will. At this point, the law of God and the laws of nations concerning “no fault” divorce are in conflict.

In Scripture, marriage is a covenant, an abiding, exclusive commitment between one man and one woman. It endures “as long as we both shall live,” not “as long as we both shall love.” God himself structures and witnesses the bond (Prov. 2:16–17; Mal. 2:14). The Pharisees apparently view marriage as something akin to a contract (contracts were common in the Roman Empire well before the NT era). In Jewish law, the power to divorce lay entirely with the husband, who could terminate the marriage if the wife failed to perform her duties (cf. comment on Matt. 19:1–3).

“What therefore God has joined” (19:6) declares God’s interest in marriage. In chapter 19, Jesus speaks to people who stand within the visible community of the faith. Within that community, God joins the faithful in marriage. But marriage is also a creation ordinance, God’s provision for all mankind. One may, therefore, say that God, in his fatherly disposition to humanity (5:45), provides marriage for the good of mankind. Yet he is especially present to seal and strengthen marriages within the covenant family.

19:7–9 When the Pharisees realize that Jesus’ position on divorce is stricter than anything they imagine, they react, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” (v. 7). That is, they ask if Jesus intends to nullify the law of Moses governing divorce in Deuteronomy 24.

But Jesus corrects them. Neither God nor Moses commanded divorce. Rather, “because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives” (Matt. 19:8). God permitted and tolerated divorce. He regulated and restrained divorce to mitigate its consequences and reduce its frequency. But he hates divorce and neither commanded nor intended it (Mal. 2:16 NASB). Jesus concludes, “From the beginning it was not so” (Matt. 19:8).

Divorce may not always be sinful in itself, but it is always the result of sins and failures. Certainly, no Scripture mandates divorce (although certain rabbis thought adultery necessitated divorce). Deuteronomy did not mandate; it regulated the way a husband would proceed if he resolved to divorce. As we saw at Matthew 5:33–37, the law tolerated and regulated some behavior (oath taking) in order to rein in sin. But the ideal is such consistent veracity that the need for oaths withers away. Again, “an eye for an eye” is an improvement on unrestrained vengeance (Gen. 4:23–24), but mercy, turning the other cheek, is God’s ideal. So here, God tolerates and regulates divorce, since regulated divorce is less harmful than heedless divorce. But the ideal, from Genesis onward, is lifelong marriage.

It is possible, due to contemporary Christian debates about the grounds for divorce, to miss the fundamental point of Matthew 19. When things fall apart, the believer will not leap to the question “What are the grounds for divorce?” Rather, believers will remember their vows, their love, and God’s grace and dig into the arduous but splendid task of rebuilding a marriage. Jesus wants to restrain divorce, not encourage it, when he says, “Whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery” (v. 9). With one exception, to divorce and remarry is to commit adultery. Further, anyone who divorces his wife except for sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery, 5:32 says. By implication, remarriage after a groundless divorce seems to be adulterous.

The questions about divorce are complex enough to have spawned a vast literature. This commentary will focus on a few essentials. First, again, Jesus’ goal is to affirm the permanence of marriage. He redirected the Pharisees by denying that “What is a just cause for divorce?” is the right question. Rather, everyone should attend to the nature of marriage. It is the full-orbed, abiding union of husband and wife. Therefore divorce, except in cases of sexual immorality, is actually a form of adultery.

The term “sexual immorality” translates one Greek word, porneia, which covers “various kinds of ‘unsanctioned sexual intercourse’” (BDAG). The array of sins includes fornication (John 8:41), adultery, homosexuality, bestiality (Lev. 18:23), incest (1 Cor. 5:1), and prostitution (1 Cor. 6:13, 16). “All of these sins are adulterous when performed by a married person.”303

Despite the intrinsic orientation of marriage toward permanence, a spouse who suffers sexual immorality may divorce his or her partner. This prerogative to divorce certainly seems to entail the right to remarry, if we take cultural and canonical contexts into account. Recall first that adultery carried the death penalty in the OT. Therefore adultery was expected to bring a marriage to an end. Rome barred Jews from executing anyone (with rare exceptions). As a consequence, many first-century rabbis required a man to divorce his wife if she committed adultery so that the marriage would end, as God intended. In that line, the Mishnah says that if a wife is adulterous, “she will be unclean” to her husband (Sotah 5:1, Neusner translation). In short, the right to divorce for adultery was not even debated. Further, in that Jewish culture, a man or woman legitimately (yet tragically) divorced was free to remarry. To be precise, when a man divorced his wife, the law required him to give her a certificate of divorce, as Matthew 5:31 reports. This certificate that dissolved the marriage simultaneously gave the woman permission to remarry. In Neusner’s translation of the Mishnah, Gittin 9:3, the text of a writ of divorce reads:

“Lo, you are permitted to any man.”

R. Judah says, “Let this be from me your writ of divorce, letter of dismissal, and deed of liberation, that you may marry anyone you want.”

The text of a writ of emancipation [is as follows]: “Lo, you are a free girl, lo you are your own [possession].”

Further, both Deuteronomy 24:1–4 and Matthew 5:31–32 expect or assume that a divorced woman will remarry shortly after divorce by economic necessity. From an exegetical standpoint, therefore, the phrase “except for sexual immorality” applies to both divorce and remarriage.304 The background shows, furthermore, that the topic is divorce, not mere separation. A few scholars argue that Jesus permits separation but not divorce, thereby ruling out remarriage. It is true that apolyō, translated “divorce” in 19:9, can mean “separate.” But apolyō is the word the Pharisees use for “divorce” in verse 3, and a word must retain the same sense in a short passage, unless the context demands a new meaning, which verse 9 does not do.

19:10–12 The disciples balk at Jesus’ restrictions on divorce, saying, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry” (v. 10). That is, if a man cannot divorce his wife when he judges it right or necessary, “it is better not to marry.” The Greek ou sympherei means “it is not advantageous” or “it is not beneficial.” The term belongs in the realm of deliberative rhetoric, and the apostles at least feign deliberation. Jewish moral tradition assumed that all men, if sound in mind and body, would marry. The OT never commends voluntary singleness.305 As the disciples perceive it, Jesus’ restrictions on divorce make marriage, which they consider mandatory, disadvantageous. Even if they have no desire to divorce, the divorce option offers escape from a difficult marriage. This seems to them an essential safeguard allowing men to proceed to marriage. On the other hand, Jesus’ restriction on divorce might lead men to forsake marriage. Therefore, since God wants all men to marry, either Jesus does not mean what he appears to mean or his teaching is erroneous.

Instead of unraveling their thought process, Jesus takes their statement at face value and says, in essence, “You may be right. If you are thinking of divorce from the start, if you think you must have a clear escape path from marriage, perhaps it is better for you not to marry.” Marriage is a lifelong covenant, and those who are not resolved to keep its vows should not take those vows. Therefore, not everyone should marry.306 In Jesus’ words, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given” (v. 11). Some are single by physical necessity; they are “eunuchs . . . from birth.” Others “have been made eunuchs by men.” This perhaps references palace officials who work in proximity to royal wives. Still others “have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom.” Jesus does not advocate castration any more than he advocates the putting out of one eye in 5:29. These are spiritual eunuchs, men who renounce marriage in order to be free to devote themselves to kingdom service.

As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7, singleness brings certain freedoms for ministry. Since virtually all apostles and OT heroes were married, singleness cannot be mandatory. Indeed, it is a serious error to disparage marriage (1 Tim. 4:1–3; Heb. 13:4; cf. Col. 2:20–23). But one may choose celibacy for the sake of kingdom work. Robertson McQuilkin aptly says, “There are two errors concerning singleness: that to be single is an unmitigated evil, and that singleness is a more holy state than marriage.”307 God’s providence and gifts vary. Jesus bids his disciples to receive his council, even if it upsets their notions: “Let the one who is able to receive this receive it” (Matt. 19:12).

19:13–15 Repetition is the mother of learning, and these verses are Jesus’ second comment on the value of little ones in a short span (cf. 18:1–6). The disciples either cannot recall or cannot apply the prior lesson. So when parents brings their children to Jesus to “lay his hands on them and pray” for them, the disciples rebuke them (19:13). But Jesus counters, “Let the little children come to me . . . for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” Then he lays his hands on them and departs (vv. 14–15).

Every culture has its notions of high and low status, of honorable and dishonorable people. It is easy to accord children low status—Greco-Roman law did, even giving parents the right to discard or abandon unwanted infants. Some argue that parents also refrained from attaching themselves to little children, given the high mortality rates. This is dubious, since there are accounts of parents grieving the loss of little ones.

Scripture, however, constantly promotes the value of children (Psalms 127; 128). Here Jesus reinforces this with deeds more than words. The crowds generally consider Jesus a prophet (Matt. 16:14; 21:11), so it is no surprise that Jewish parents, who occasionally asked great men to bless their children, bring them to him. But the disciples think Jesus should not be bothered. This is not the only time someone attempts to keep a low-status supplicant from Jesus. It happens again when blind beggars ask Jesus for help as he prepares to enter Jerusalem. There too, he stops to help (20:29–34). Paul remarks, “While we were still weak, . . . Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). Paul has the atonement in view, but Jesus’ final gift to the weak is no new development. He constantly cares for the last, the least, and outsiders, including children. Whatever one’s position on the timing of baptism, disciples should agree: Jesus receives children, blesses them, and says that the kingdom belongs to them.