Commentaria in Deuteronomium
Chapter the Twenty-fourth
First, vers. 1, a bill of divorce is permitted. Secondly, vers. 6, various laws are ordained concerning pledges and the relief of the poor.
1. If a man take a wife, and have her, and she find not favour in his eyes, for some uncleanness, he shall write a bill of divorce, and shall give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. 2. And when she is departed, and marrieth another husband, 3. and he also hateth her, and hath given her a bill of divorce, and hath sent her out of his house, or is dead; 4. the former husband cannot take her again to wife: because she is defiled, and become abominable before the Lord; that thou cause not thy land to sin, which the Lord thy God shall give thee to possess. 5. When a man hath lately taken a wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall any public charge be laid upon him, but he shall be free at home for a year, to rejoice with his wife. 6. Thou shalt not take the nether nor the upper millstone to pledge: for he hath pledged his life to thee. 7. If any man be found soliciting his brother of the children of Israel, and selling him shall take a price, he shall be put to death, and thou shalt take away the evil from the midst of thee. 8. Observe diligently that thou incur not the plague of leprosy, but thou shalt do whatsoever the priests of the Levitical race shall teach thee, according to what I have commanded them, and fulfil it carefully. 9. Remember what the Lord your God did to Mary in the way, when you came out of Egypt. 10. When thou shalt demand of thy neighbour any thing that he oweth thee, thou shalt not go into his house to take a pledge: 11. but thou shalt stand without, and he shall bring out to thee what he hath. 12. But if he be poor, the pledge shall not lodge with thee, 13. but thou shalt restore it to him presently before sunset, that he may sleep in his own raiment, and bless thee, and thou mayest have justice before the Lord thy God. 14. Thou shalt not refuse the hire of the needy and poor, whether he be thy brother, or a stranger that dwelleth with thee in the land, and is within thy gates: 15. but thou shalt pay him the price of his labour the same day before the going down of the sun, because he is poor, and with it maintaineth his life: lest he cry against thee to the Lord, and it be imputed to thee for a sin. 16. The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children for the fathers: but every one shall die for his own sin. 17. Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger and the fatherless, nor take away the widow’s raiment for a pledge. 18. Remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God delivered thee from thence. Therefore I command thee to do this thing: 19. When thou hast reaped the corn in thy field, and hast forgotten and left a sheaf, thou shalt not return to take it away: but shalt suffer the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow to take it away: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the works of thy hands. 20. If thou gather the fruit of thy olive trees, whatsoever remaineth on the trees thou shalt not return to gather it, but shalt leave it for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. 21. If thou make the vintage of thy vineyard, thou shalt not gather the clusters that remain, but they shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. 22. Remember that thou also wast a bondman in Egypt, and therefore I command thee to do this thing.
1. IF A MAN TAKE A WIFE, AND SHE FIND NOT FAVOUR BEFORE HIS EYES, FOR SOME UNCLEANNESS, HE SHALL WRITE A BILL OF DIVORCE.—For “uncleanness” the Hebrew is ervath, that is, nakedness, whence Tertullian, book iv Against Marcion, chap. xxxiv, reads: If in her there be found a shameless matter; and thence concludes that for the sole fornication of the wife divorce was lawful to the Jews. The same thinks Burgensis on Matthew xix.
But Origen, Chrysostom and interpreters everywhere, here and on Matthew xix, 7, take by “uncleanness” not fornication alone, but also other uncleannesses, of mind as well as of body, and teach that divorce was lawful on account of them; and the Hebrew word sufficiently indicates this, which has the uncleanness of some matter. For in Hebrew ervath, that is, nakedness, is taken by metalepsis and catachresis for uncleanness, or any shameful and foul matter: for nakedness is a very shameful and foul thing. Such turpitude, then, or foulness, for which divorce of a wife was lawful, was, for example, leprosy, sterility, sorcery, perpetual quarrels, drunkenness, and other incorrigible evil manners. For in fornication, or rather adultery, divorce hardly seems to have had place; for if the crime were established, the adulteress was stoned, as is plain from Leviticus xx, 10; but if she were held suspected of the crime, she was betrayed by the waters of jealousy, which she was forced to drink, as is plain from Numbers v, 27.
Note, however: the Jews could not give a bill of divorce for any cause, or for slight uncleanness: for this is what Malachias, chap. ii, vers. 16, says, reproving those who, enticed by the beauty of foreign women, put away their Hebrew wives: “When thou shalt hate her, put her away; yet iniquity shall cover his garment,” that is, his body, which is as it were the garment of the soul, says St. Jerome; as if to say: If for this cause, namely because she is not fair enough, thou hatest and puttest away thy wife, thou shalt sin, and the penalty of this sin will be brought upon thy body by God. Then it was the one putting away who sinned, but not the one put away, because she was forced to depart.
HE SHALL WRITE A BILL OF DIVORCE.—Hence more probable seems the opinion of those who teach that the divorce of wives was so permitted to the Jews that God, dispensing with them in this part, those who put them away did not sin.
Moreover, through this divorce the bond of marriage was dissolved, so that the divorcer could take another, and the divorced woman could marry another (though others think otherwise, from the fact that in vers. 4 such a divorced woman is called defiled and abominable, of which vers. 4).
For first, a manner and rite of divorce is here prescribed; and by this very fact that the once-divorced woman is forbidden to return to the husband who put her away, it is sufficiently intimated that she could marry another man: whence in fact most married another. For this signifies what is said in vers. 2: “And when she is departed, and marrieth another husband”; therefore the former marriage had already been dissolved by the divorce. Otherwise that old law would have permitted public and continual adulteries; for such would have been the union of all the divorced women with new husbands, if the former marriage, once entered with the divorcer, was not dissolved by the divorce; and consequently the children born of them would have been adulterine and spurious, and so the inheritances of many would have devolved upon the spurious.