Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 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.
18. Whosoever putteth away his wife ] At first sight this verse (which also occurs with an important limitation in Mat 5:32) appears so loosely connected with the former as to lead the Dutch theologian Van der Palm to suppose that St Luke was merely utilising a spare fragment on the page by inserting isolated words of Christ. But compressed as the discourse is, we see that this verse illustrates, no less than the others, the spirit of the Pharisees. They professed to reverence the Law and the Prophets, yet divorce (so alien to the primitive institution of marriage) was so shamefully lax among them that great Rabbis in the Talmud practically abolished all the sacredness of marriage in direct contradiction to Mal 2:15-16. Even Hillel said a man might divorce his wife if she over-salted his soup. They made the whole discussion turn, not on eternal truths, but on a mere narrow verbal disquisition about the meaning of two words ervath dabhar, ‘some uncleanness’ (lit. ‘matter of nakedness’), in Deu 24:1-2. Not only Hillel, but even the son of Sirach ( Sir 25:26 ) and Josephus (Anil. iv. 8, 23), interpreted this to mean ‘for any or every cause.’ (Mat 19:3-12; Mar 10:2-12.) Besides this shameful laxity the Pharisees had never had the courage to denounce the adulterous marriage and disgraceful divorce of which Herod Antipas had been guilty.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
See the notes at Mat 5:32. These verses occur in Matthew in a different order, and it is not improbable that they were spoken by our Saviour at different times. The design, here, seems to be to reprove the Pharisees for not observing the law of Moses, notwithstanding their great pretensions to external righteousness, and to show them that they had really departed from the law.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 18. Putteth away (or divorceth) his wife] See on Mt 5:31; Mt 5:32; Mt 19:9; Mt 19:10; Mr 10:12; where the question concerning divorce is considered at large. These verses, from the 13th to the 18th Lu 16:13-18 inclusive, appear to be part of our Lord’s sermon on the mount; and stand in a much better connection there than they do here; unless we suppose our Lord delivered the same discourse at different times and places, which is very probable.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
See Poole on “Mat 5:32“, where this is expounded; also, See Poole on “Mat 19:9“, and See Poole on “Mar 10:11“.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
18. putteth away his wife,&c.(See on Mt 19:3-9). Farfrom intending to weaken the force of the law, in these allusions toa new economy, our Lord, in this unexpected way, sends home its highrequirements with a pungency which the Pharisees would not fail tofeel.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Whosoever putteth away his wife,…. For any other cause than for adultery, as the Jews used to do upon every trifling occasion, and for every little disgust: by which instance our Lord shows, how the Jews abused and depraved the law, and as much as in them lay, caused it to fail; and how he, on the other hand, was so far from destroying and making it of none effect, that he maintained the purity and spirituality of it; putting them in mind of what he had formerly said, and of many other things of the like kind along with it; how that if a man divorces his wife, for any thing else but the defiling his bed,
and marrieth another, committeth adultery: with her that he marries: because his marriage with the former still continues, and cannot be made void by, such a divorce:
and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband; the phrase “from her husband”, is omitted in the Syriac and Persic versions:
committeth adultery; with her that he marries, because notwithstanding her husband’s divorce of her, and his after marriage with her, she still remains his lawful and proper wife;
[See comments on Mt 5:32]. The Ethiopic version reads this last clause, quite different from all others, thus, “and whosoever puts away her husband, and joins to another, commits adultery”, agreeably to
[See comments on Mr 10:12].
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Committeth adultery (). Another repeated saying of Christ (Matt 5:32; Mark 10:11; Matt 19:9). Adultery remains adultery, divorce or no divorce, remarriage or no marriage.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
JESUS REGARDING DIVORCE V. 18
1) “Whosoever putteth away ‘his wife,” (pas ho apoluon ten gunaika autou) “Each one or whoever dismisses (releases) his wife,” 1Co 7:10, as described Mat 5:32, “Except for sexual acts of infidelity with another party.”
2) “And marrieth another, committeth adultery:” (kai gamon heteran moicheuei) “And marries another, who is different, commits adultery,” Mat 5:32. Our Lord seems to have injected this matter into His teaching because of the laxity of the Pharisees who permitted divorce for “every cause” or about any kind of excuse.
3) “And whosoever marrieth her that Is put away from her husband,” (kai ho apolelumenen apo andros gamon) “And the man who marries a woman who has been dismissed, released, or divorced from a husband;” This passage, in isolation might seem to imply that Jesus forbid divorce altogether, which is not true, when harmonized with other Scriptures, as Mat 5:32; Mat 19:9.
4) “Committeth adultery,” (moicheuei) “He commits adultery,” an act of lawless, immoral, unethical infidelity against his marital partner and against the God of the law, Mat 5:32; Mat 19:9. Instead of weakening the principles and force of morals and ethics of the law our Lord would strengthen the fiber of its righteous concepts of holiness and justice, Rom 7:12.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(18) Whosoever putteth away his wife.On the special points involved, see Notes on Mat. 5:31-32; Mat. 19:3-9. Here, again, the explanation that has been given of the parable of the Unjust Steward, offers the only satisfactory explanation of the introduction of a topic apparently so irrelevant. The doctrine and discipline of divorce which the Pharisees taught, lowering the sacredness of the life of home, and ministering to the growing laxity of mens morals, was precisely what was meant by the stewards bidding the debtors take their bill and write fifty, or fourscore measures, instead of the hundred. (See Note on Luk. 16:6-7).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
18. Marrieth her Our Lord calls no names, but there was no hearer but made the application. Herod Antipas had married the wife of his brother, as all the nation knew. See notes on Mat 14:1-4. The part these guardians of the nation’s morals had acted would rise up to every man’s mind to their confusion as deriders of Jesus. Thus did this first reply of Jesus serve to show them how little they were making the mammon of unrighteousness the genuine friend of their highest interest.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“Every one who puts away his wife, and marries another, commits adultery, and he who marries one who is put away from a husband commits adultery.”
For God’s Instruction says that every man who puts away his wife and marries another commits adultery. And that anyone who marries a divorced person commits adultery. This is because, as Gen 2:23-24 makes clear, when a man and a woman marry they become ‘one flesh’. That is why Jesus elsewhere declares, ‘what God has joined together let not man put asunder’ (Mar 10:9; Mat 19:6). So having become one flesh they are inseparable, and to break that oneness in any way can only bring them under the displeasure of God. This means that when a man puts away his wife and marries another he commits adultery. He falsely breaks the tie that binds him to his first wife.
The particular addition of the second part of the verse, ‘he who marries one who is put away from a husband commits adultery’, may indicate a propensity on the part of Pharisees to marry wives who have been divorced. Perhaps they saw themselves as obtaining merit through it, or perhaps there were particularly outstanding cases that Jesus has in mind.
This particular example was a good one to use as easy divorce caused such clear and open distress to innocent women. It very much revealed the worst side of the Pharisees who had a contempt for women. All listening would recognise the point, for on the whole the Rabbis had watered this Law down so much that divorce was allowed for the most trivial of reasons. By a misuse of Deu 24:1-4 they had made void the Law through their traditions. Hillel allowed a man to divorce his wife if she burned the dinner, or if she talked to a strange man, or if she talked disrespectfully about his relations in his presence, and Akiba allowed it if a man found someone prettier than his wife. Thus was the sacredness of marriage, established at creation (Gen 2:24), treated with mockery. On the other hand a woman was not allowed to initiate divorce for any reason whatsoever. All this was a scandalous treatment of the Law and made a mockery of it. But it epitomised the whole Pharisaic attitude to the Law and to women. In one sense they treated the Law very reverently, but by their manipulation of it they often made a fool of it.
So the Pharisees, having mocked Jesus because of His teaching on riches, have suddenly had the tables turned on them. He has demonstrated not only that they cannot ‘see the Kingly Rule of God’ (compare Joh 3:2), but also how they misuse the Law in even what is most basic to a satisfactory family life. They are seen as totally unreliable guides, and as destroying what lies at the very root of a stable society. Rather than simply argue with them about riches He has totally laid bare the bankruptcy of their whole lives and teaching.
The dual thoughts of the use of riches, and the validity of the Law and the prophets now lead into the story of the rich man and Lazarus. This commences with the false behaviour of a rich man and ends with an appeal to the Law and the prophets, that Law which, if given its Scriptural interpretation (‘the prophets’) rather than its Pharisaic interpretation, will, if men heed it, prevent them taking the downward path. But, as he has already stressed, the Pharisees have manipulated that Law to suit their own ideas, and it has therefore for them lost its effectiveness. And He will now also make clear that it is precisely because the rich man, like the Pharisees, has manipulated the Law of Moses and the prophets, and has in his case withheld help from the poor, that he ends up as he does.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Luk 16:18 . See on Mat 5:32 ; Mat 19:9 . Of what Christ has just said of the continual obligation of the law he now gives an isolated example , as Luke found it here already in his original source. For the choice of this place (not the original one) a special inducement must have been conceived of, which Luke does not mention; perhaps only, in general, the remembrance of the varieties of doctrine prevailing at that time on the question of divorce (see on Mat 19:3 ); perhaps, also, the thought that among those Pharisees were such as had done that which the verse mentions (comp. Euthymius Zigabenus).
The saying, however, in the mind of Jesus, serves as a voucher for the obligation of the law without exception, on the ground of Gen 2:24 . See on Mat 19:4 ff.; Mar 16:6 ff. Olshausen explains this of spiritual fornication, [205] that what God had joined together ( i.e. the law according to its everlasting significance, Luk 16:17 ), the Pharisees had arbitrarily loosed (in that they loved money and wealth more than God), and that which God had loosed ( i.e. the Old Testament theocracy in its temporary aspect, Luk 16:16 ), they wished to maintain as obligatory, and had thus practised a twofold spiritual adultery. How arbitrary, without the slightest hint in the text! The supposed meaning of the second member would be altogether without correspondence to the expressions, and the Pharisees might have used the first member directly for their justification, in order to confirm their prohibition of any accession to the Gospel. As to the obviousness of the exception which adultery makes in reference to the prohibition of divorce, see on Mat 5:32 .
[205] Comp. also H. Bauer, op. cit. p. 544, who thinks the meaning is that Israel is not to separate himself from the Mosaic law, and not to urge it upon the heathens.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
18 Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.
Ver. 18. See Mat 5:32 ; Mat 19:9 ; Mar 10:5 ;
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Luk 16:18
18″Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.”
Luk 16:18 “everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery” This must be understood in the light of the context, as one example of the Jewish leaders trying to circumvent the obvious purpose of the Mosaic Law (cf. Luk 16:16-17 and the passage in Deu 24:1-4), with the interpretations of their Talmudic, rabbinical traditions (Hillel, very liberal and Shammai, very conservative).
“commits adultery” Does remarriage mean that one commits adultery? Was Jesus discussing Moses’ statements found in Deu 24:1-4? Moses wrote this to protect the rejected women of his day, who were so vulnerable to abuse. The only appropriate reason given for the dissolution of a marriage was sexually inappropriate behavior (Shammai, cf. Mat 5:32). If a woman was put away the community assumed she was dismissed for sexual infidelity (she was stigmatized as an adulteress). This interpretation is confirmed by the passive voice verbals (“causes her to commit adultery) of Mat 5:32; Mat 19:9.
For more information on divorce go to www.freebiblecommentary.org and click on “Controversial and Difficult Texts,” then click on the “Christian Home” (audio lessons).
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Whosoever, &c. This verse is not “loosely connected”, or “out of any connexion” with what precedes, as alleged. The Structure above shows its true place, in C1, how the Pharisees made void the law (as to divorce); and C2, how they made void the prophets (verses: Luk 16:16, Luk 16:17) and the rest of Scripture as to the dead (verses: 19-23).
putteth away, &c. The Rabbis made void the law and the prophets by their traditions, evading Deu 22:22, and their “scandalous licence” regarding Deu 24:1. See John Lightfoot, Works (1658), J. R. Pitman’s edn. (1823), vol. xi, pp. 116-21 for the many frivolous grounds for divorce.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Luk 16:18. , every one who putteth away) The cause also of divorce either on the part of him who put away his wife, or on the part of the Pharisees and Judges, may have been covetousness, Luk 16:14, for the sake of the gain derived from the writing of divorcement. This abuse at that time prevailed to a great degree. [The express exception[174] (Mat 5:32; Mat 19:9) in the case of one put away on account of adultery did not belong to this place: for in that case it is not the husband but the unfaithful party (wife) who by the very act separates her own self from him.-V. g.]
[174] The Ed. Tert. Tubing. 1835, has deserta, evidently a misprint for diserta, as the Germ. Vers. has ausdrckliche.-E. and T.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Mat 5:32, Mat 19:9, Mar 10:11, Mar 10:12, 1Co 7:4, 1Co 7:10-12
Reciprocal: Deu 24:1 – send her Mal 2:16 – the Lord
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
8
This is discussed in detail at Mat 19:9.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Luk 16:18. Every one who putteth away his wife, etc. The law remains valid on a point about which many of the Pharisees were altogether wrong (comp. Mat 19:3-9). If, as we believe, the verse occurs in its proper connection, there was in the opinions of the Pharisees present some occasion for referring to this matter. Very shortly afterwards this class tempted Him in regard to the question of divorce. An allusion to Herods conduct is unlikely, since his case was different. Any reference to spiritual adultery (the service of mammon) seems far-fetched. On the principle here laid down, see on Mat 5:31-32.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 18
Putteth away his wife; that is, for ordinary causes. (Matthew 19:9.)
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
16:18 Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her {g} that is put away from [her] husband committeth adultery.
(g) They that gather by this passage that a man cannot be married again after he has divorced his wife for adultery, while she lives, reason incorrectly: for Christ speaks of those divorces which the Jews had which were not because of adultery, for adulterers were put to death by the law.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Jesus next cited an example of the continuing validity of the Old Testament and the Pharisees’ disregard of it. God still expected and expects submission to His Word. The Pharisees did not condone adultery, though they permitted divorce (Deu 24:1-4). Some Pharisees permitted a man to divorce his wife and then remarry another woman, though most of them did not grant women the same privilege. [Note: Marshall, The Gospel . . ., p. 631.] Jesus condemned such conduct as a violation of the seventh commandment. This was an example of the Pharisees justifying themselves in the eyes of men but not being just before God (Luk 16:15). Jesus both affirmed and clarified the Old Testament revelation. Therefore for the Pharisees to disregard His teaching about money was equivalent to rejecting other divine revelation.
This teaching on divorce supplements other statements that Jesus made on the same subject on other occasions (cf. Mat 5:32; Mat 19:9; Mar 10:11). Mat 19:9 and Mar 10:11 evidently record one teaching incident. Mat 5:32 occurs in the context of the Sermon on the Mount. Luke’s reference reflects a third context. As in Mar 10:11, Jesus omitted the exception clause here (cf. Mat 5:32; Mat 19:9). He evidently did not want to draw attention to the exceptional case because to do so would weaken His main point, namely, that people should not divorce. Matthew included Jesus’ permission to divorce for fornication because the subject of how to deal with divorce cases involving marital unfaithfulness was of particular interest to the Jews.
"The basic application to this small unit is to respond with obedience to the kingdom demand for ethical integrity, whether it be in how we deal with our resources or how we approach our marriages." [Note: Bock, Luke, p. 429.]