Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 10:5
And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept.
And Jesus answered and said unto them,…. With respect to this command, or sufferance of Moses, which they urged:
for the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept; it was, not because it was right in its own nature, or according to the original will of God; but, because the Jews were such cruel, and hard hearted men, that if this had not been permitted, some of them, that had wives not so agreeable to them, would have used them in a very inhuman manner, if not murdered them; and therefore to prevent further, and greater mischief, Moses indulged them with such a precept; [See comments on Mt 19:8].
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
1) “And Jesus answered and said unto them,” (ho de lesous eipen autois) “Then Jesus said to them, (the Pharisees),” who sought to entrap Him, Mar 10:2.
2) “For the hardness of your heart,” (pros ten sklerokardian humon) “As it relates to your hard heartedness,” or because of your “obstinate hearts,” those like you who always resist the Holy Spirit, and primary will of God for permissive laws, where low ethics abound, or for traditions of elders, Mar 7:9.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
‘But Jesus said to them, “He wrote you this commandment because of your hardness of heart. But from the beginning of creation he made them male and female. For this reason shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh, so that they are no more two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together let not man separate.” ’
Jesus reply was that they were misinterpreting Deuteronomy 24. He was the only one who considered it in its context, and He pointed out that it was a provision made because of men’s hardness of heart in divorcing their wives. God’s primary will and intention, He pointed out, was that once a man and woman had come together as one through sexual union they should be seen as inseparable because they had become uniquely one. In evidence of this He quoted Gen 1:27; Gen 2:24-25. Thus He was declaring that divorce was not God’s will and intention at all, but was to be seen as what it was, something that resulted from man’s hardness of heart. He was not contending that Moses was wrong. Indeed both He and the Pharisees saw Genesis 1, 2 and Deu 24:1-4 as the work of Moses and therefore as containing his teaching. He was contending that the Scribes had interpreted these verses wrongly
‘Because of your hardness of heart.’ It was because man was sinful and hardened his heart against God’s will and did divorce what he saw as an unsatisfactory wife that God spoke of a certificate of divorce in Deu 24:1. But it was never His strict intention that it be seen as permissive. It arose because unfortunately men disobeyed His commandments and did put their wives away, something which could leave the wives in a parlous position as it might be questioned whether they were divorced or not. Deuteronomy 24 was thus simply safeguarding any woman to whom it happened (against the will of God) from false accusations. Divorce is therefore a sign of the division between God and man, for it reveals hardness of heart. The word for ‘hardness of heart’ is restricted to Jewish and Christian literature. It signified an attitude developed against God.
‘From the beginning of the creation he made them male and female.’ The reason for this is stated. It is that originally man and woman were made as one. There was no thought that they would ever separate, for they were seen as indissolubly linked, and such a thought was therefore not God’s intention. That is why when a man marries a woman he leaves behind his father and mother, and that household of which he was firmly and very much a part, and forms a new household, joined to his wife as one flesh as Adam was to Eve. The tie of marriage is therefore to be seen as stronger and deeper than the tie of blood, which is itself indissoluble. The thought was not that a man no longer had any regard for his wider family. It was that his regard for his wife should become the priority.
‘They shall become one flesh.’ That is, will be joined by as close a union as it is possible to have, united in their flesh by an unbreakable spiritual bond.
‘What therefore God has joined together let not man separate.’ To seek divorce therefore is to seek to separate what God has joined together. It is not therefore something that a man should desire or permit. It is totally banned. We should not understate this argument. It is declaring that God has so instituted the union of a man and woman in a marriage relationship that there is a genuine, if invisible, way in which they become one, so that to engage in sexual relations with any other actually breaks a genuine, if unidentifiable, unity. It is not just a play on words. It is a genuine reality.
Mark is here bringing out God’s absolute purpose under the Kingly Rule of God as revealed in the words of Jesus. For this reason he does not bring out the exception mentioned in Mat 19:9, ‘except it be for fornication’ (compare Mat 5:32), for that exception arose because by illicit sexual union the guilty parties have themselves caused the sinful separation. But it was never God’s intention, and could only therefor be seen as an aberration. This brings out quite clearly that sexual union is seen by God as binding and total (compare 1Co 6:16). His purpose was that man should be both monogamous and faithful. And His purpose in this was so that they might ‘go forth and multiply’. Anything that does not result in that intention is not marriage, for true marriage is a family forming relationship, not an exclusive bond between two self-centred people who think only of each other (although we must recognise the difference between intention and unintended and undesired consequences)
The stress on this faithfulness was so strong in the Law that an adulterer and an adulteress were to be put to death (Lev 20:10), and the result would be that the husband or wife would be freed from the marriage tie because of the death of the one who had broken the tie. This was the absolute position. But once the law on instant death had ceased to be put into practise through mercy or force of circumstances, the presumption was made that presumably he or she could be seen as ‘dead’, and treated as such. Thus the exemption.
So Jesus was laying out the difference between God’s will and purpose on the one hand, something on which there could be no concession (compare Mal 2:14-16 which emphasises this), and sinful man’s behaviour on the other for which provision had to be made for the sake of the innocent party. Without the position laid down in Deuteronomy a woman could have been left in an impossible position because of a man’s hard-heartedness. This was the situation that Moses was commanded to alleviate. But it was never God’s intention that it be treated as a norm, nor did it mean that He had given permission for divorce, for most decidedly He had not.
The startling nature of this declaration should be recognised. Indeed it even startled His disciples. For it established a whole new situation with regard to marriage, and indicated a purpose in marriage that was God ordained and God demanded, and was different from how all men saw it. Jesus was thus changing the whole view on the subject in a way that could only be seen as possible under the Kingly Rule of God. Only those who subscribed to the Sermon on the Mount could be expected to live in this way, as that Sermon itself made clear (Mat 5:27-32).
Jesus thus turned a Pharisaic discussion on divorce into statement of the purpose of marriage, and thereby revealed that a new way of approaching life had begun under the Kingly Rule of God, a way that set aside the old weaknesses and excuses. A way that demanded a commitment to positive love and cooperation, sealed by marital faithfulness. It was one way in which the true people of God would stand out from all others, a foundation stone of the new Kingly Rule. As Paul will later point out, one of the most important responsibilities of Christian women was to bear and bring up children as Christian men and women. Thereby they experienced and worked out their salvation (1Ti 2:15).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The answer of Jesus:
v. 5. And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept.
v. 6. But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.
v. 7. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife;
v. 8. and they twain shall be one flesh; so, then, they are no more twain, but one flesh.
v. 9. What therefore God hath joined together let not man put asunder. Jesus was well acquainted with this bit of Mosaic legislation, and He also knew the reasons for the adoption of this precept in the Jewish law. The form of government in the Jewish nation during the first centuries of its national existence was that of a theocracy, of a direct legislating by God. The order to which they referred was given by Moses in his capacity as Jewish lawgiver, in order to prevent worse injury and injustice. The government will sometimes find it a wise policy to leave some wrong go unpunished, lest a great many innocent people suffer with the guilty. But this dispensation of Moses, which was given on account of the hardness of their hearts, did not in any way invalidate the institution of marriage and the holiness of the tie of wedlock. That institution and the words of institution are a part of the Moral Law of the universe; there, in the beginning, God plainly stated His will and intention with regard to the obligations of man and woman in the state of wedlock. He did not create a single sex, but He made two sexes, male and female, Gen 1:28. And these two sexes, represented in one man and one woman, were to be united in marriage. Therefore the second passage from Gen 2:14, indicates the normal, the usual state of affairs. A man, having reached marriageable age, and having observed the other preliminary steps enjoined by God, will leave his father and his mother, will sever the relationship of childhood and youth, and will be joined to his wife, will enter into a new relationship which will make him and his wife one flesh. It is, then, no longer a question of their own whim and choice, but of God’s ordinance, so that they are no longer two, but only one body and one flesh. It is the most intimate union which is possible in the external, temporal world. This fact should be stated and reiterated in our own midst without ceasing, lest the sanctity of the marriage-bond be disregarded more and more. Young people in many cases do not seek the institution of Christ in the sense in which Christ made the ordinance; they have other motives: the pursuit of voluptuousness and luxury. The inviolability of the marriage contract before God has become a blasphemous jest and mockery. But Christ here says: What God hath joined together, where two people have agreed to become yoke-fellows, to bow their necks under the same yoke, to draw the wagon of life together, to share, under God’s rule and blessing, all joys and sorrows alike, there this yoke shall not be broken; no man, not the young people or their parents, not relatives or so-called good friends, no court in the world, shall and can separate them. Even if the courts declare the marriage bond dissolved, it still holds in the sight of God.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Mar 10:5 Both evangelists, while varying considerably in their reports, carefully preserve this important logion as to legislation conditioned by the sklerokardia . : at the end, with emphasis; this particular command in contradiction to the great original one.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Jesus. App-98.
For = In view of. Greek. pros. App-104. Not the Same word as in verses: Mar 10:22, Mar 10:27, Mar 10:45,
he wrote. See App-47.
you = for you.
precept = (authoritative) mandate.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Mar 10:5. , wrote) viz. Moses, the writer of the Pentateuch: ch. Mar 12:19.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
For: Deu 9:6, Deu 31:27, Neh 9:16, Neh 9:17, Neh 9:26, Mat 19:8, Act 7:51, Heb 3:7-10
Reciprocal: Deu 31:9 – Moses Mat 5:32 – whosoever Mat 19:5 – said
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
5
Jesus did not deny their citation but explained the reason for the law; the people were not in the favorable attitude for the strictness of enforcement, and as an emergency some tolerance was extended to them.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mar 10:5. For your hardness of heart. Their general sinfulness, with special reference to harshness toward their wives, which this regulation was designed to counteract. It was not to encourage divorce.
He wrote. This implies that some of the precepts of the Mosaic law were of temporary validity, designed only to educate the chosen people. The law of Paradise is, in one sense, more permanent, just as Paul exalts the Abrahamic covenant above the law (Galatians 3).
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
10:5 {1} And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this {b} precept.
(1) God never allowed those divorces which the law tolerated.
(b) See Mat 19:3-12 . For Moses gave them no commandment to put away their wives, but rather made a good stipulation for the wives to protect them from the stubborn hardness of their husbands.