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Mat_5:31 f.[410] In Deu_24:1 there is stated as a reason for the dismissal which is to be carried out, òÆøÀåÇú ãÌÈáÈø , something hateful, loathsome (see Ewald, Alterthum. p. 272; Keil, Archäol. II. p. 74 f.; Gesenius, Thes. II. p. 1068). This was explained by the strict Rabbi Sammai and his adherents as referring to adultery and other unchaste behaviour; but the gentle Rabbi Hillel and his school as referring to everything in general that displeased the husband (Josephus, Antt. iv. 8. 23; Vita, 76). Lightfoot, p. 273 ff.; Ewald, Jahrb. X. p. 56 ff., 81. Rabbi Abika went still further, who allowed dismissal if the husband found a more beautiful woman; see Wetstein. To these and other (see Othonis, Lex. Rabb. p. 504) ill-considered principles—for Hillel’s doctrine had become the prevalent one
Christ opposes Himself, and draws out from the original and inmost nature of marriage (comp. Mat_19:4 ff.) a firm rule, preserving the sanctity of the idea, and admitting only that as a ground of separation by which the nature of marriage and its obligations is, as a matter of fact, directly and immediately destroyed.[411]
ἀπολύσῃ ] not repudiare constituerit (Fritzsche after Grotius), but will have dismissed. In this is implied the oral declaration of dismissal, the accomplishment of which as a fact is to take place by means of a letter of divorce. The command to give the letter of divorce, moreover, the use of which was already in existence before the law, is only indirectly implied in Deu_24:1; comp. on Mat_19:7. The Greek expression for the dismissal of the woman is ἀποπέμπειν , Bekker, Anecd. p. 421; Bremi, ad Dem. adv. Onetor. iv. p. 92. On the wanton practice of the Greeks in this matter, see Hermann, Privatalterth. § 30.
ἀποστάσιον ] departure, that is, by means of a βιβλίον ἀποστασίου , Deu_24:1; Mat_19:7; Mar_10:4; Jer_3:8. In Demosthenes, 790. 2, 940. 15, it is the desertion of his master, contrary to duty, by a manumitted slave; Hermann, l.c., § 57. 17.
The formula of the letter of divorce, see in Alphes. in Gittin, f. 600; in Lightfoot, p. 277. The object of the same was to prove that the marriage had been legally dissolved, and that it was competent to enter into a second marriage with another man (Ewald, l.c.). Observe, moreover, how the saying of the scribes, which has been quoted, is a mutilation of the legal precept, which had become traditional in the service of their lax principles, as if it, beside the arbitrary act of the man, were merely a question of the formality of the letter of divorce.
[410] The assertion that, if Jesus had delivered this declaration here, the discussion regarding divorce in ch. 19 could not have taken place (Köstlin, p. 47; Holtzmann, p. 176 f.), has no foundation, especially as in Mat_19:3, Mar_10:2, the discussion is called forth by the Pharisees; comp. Weiss. Olshausen and Bleek also find in ch. 19 the historical position for the declaration, which Hilgenfeld regards as a non-original appendix to what precedes; which is also substantially the judgment of Ritschl, who regards the metabatic δέ in ver. 31 as introducing an objection to vv. 29, 30.
[411] Comp. Harless, Ehescheidungsfrage, p. 17 ff.