The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?
| Word | Greek | Strong’s | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pharisees | Φαρισαῖοι Pharisaioi | G5330 | a separatist · noun — nominative plural masculine, a title |
| also | καὶ kai | G2532 | and · conjunction |
| came | προσῆλθον prosēlthon | G4334 | to approach · verb — second aorist active indicative, 3rd person plural |
| him | αὐτῷ autō | G846 | the reflexive pronoun self · personal pronoun — dative singular masculine |
| tempting | πειράζοντες peirazontes | G3985 | to test (objectively) · verb — present active participle, nominative plural masculine |
| him | αὐτὸν auton | G846 | the reflexive pronoun self · personal pronoun — accusative singular masculine |
| and | καὶ kai | G2532 | and · conjunction |
| saying | λέγοντες legontes | G3004 | properly · verb — present active participle, nominative plural masculine |
| him | αὐτοῦ autou | G846 | the reflexive pronoun self · personal pronoun — genitive singular masculine |
| it | εἰ ei | G1487 | if · conditional particle |
| lawful | ἔξεστιν exestin | G1832 | so also neuter present participle of the same (with or… · verb — present active indicative, 3rd person singular |
| man | ἀνθρώπῳ anthrōpō | G444 | from G3700 (ὀπτάνομαι)) · noun — dative singular masculine |
| away | ἀπολῦσαι apolusai | G630 | to free fully · verb — aorist active infinitive |
| his | αὐτός autós | G846 | the reflexive pronoun self |
| wife | γυναῖκα gunaika | G1135 | a woman · noun — accusative singular feminine |
| for | κατὰ kata | G2596 | (prepositionally) down (in place or time) · preposition |
| every | πᾶσαν pasan | G3956 | all · adjective — accusative singular feminine |
| cause | αἰτίαν;¶ aitian | G156 | a cause (as if asked for) · noun — accusative singular feminine |
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?--Two rival schools (as we saw on Mat 5:31) were divided on this question--a delicate one, as DE WETTE pertinently remarks, in the dominions of Herod Antipas.
The Pharisees also came unto him,.... Either from the places round about, or from Jerusalem: these came unto him, not for the sake of learning, or to be instructed by him; but as spies upon him, to observe what he said and did, and watch every opportunity to expose him to the contempt and hatred of the people; tempting him with a question about divorces, in order to ensnare him: and saying to him, is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? be it ever so trivial, as said the school of Hillell: for there was a difference between the school of Shammai and the school of Hillell about this matter; the former insisted that a man might not put away his wife but in case of unclea…
Read the whole note in the consoleMatthew 19:3-9 Matthew 19:3-9 Mark 10:2-12 3. And the Pharisees came to him, tempting him, and saying to him, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever? 4. Who answering said to them, Have you not read, that he who made them at first, [593] made them male and female? 5. And he said, Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall be one flesh. 6. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh: what God therefore hath joined, let not man separate. 7. They say to him, Why then did Moses order to give a letter of divorcement, and send her away? 8. He said to them, Moses, for the hardness of your heart, permitted you to divor…
Read the whole note in the consoleThere were two divergent views on when one was allowed to divorce one’s wife. One group of Pharisees, following Rabbi Shammai, argued that divorce was allowed only in the case of adultery or other grave sin, while the other group, following Rabbi Hillel, contended that a man could divorce his wife for any reason, such as if she burned his dinner.
Seeing the Lord thus tempted, let none of His disciples who is set to teach think it hard if he also be by some tempted. Howbeit, He replies to His tempters with the doctrines of piety.
That they might have Him as it were between the horns of a syllogism, so that, whatever answer He should make, it would lie open to cavil. Should He allow a wife to be put away for any cause, and the marriage of another, he would seem to contradict Himself as a preacher of chastity. Should He answer that she may not be put away for any cause whatsoever, He will be judged to have spoken impiously, and to make against the teaching of Moses and of God.
But grant that these argumentations may be thought to be forced and founded on conjectures, if no dogmatic teachings have stood parallel with them which the Lord uttered in treating of divorce, which, permitted formerly, He now prohibits, first because "from the beginning it was not so," like plurality of marriage; secondly, because "What God hath conjoined, man shall not separate," -for fear, namely, that he contravene the Lord: for He alone shall "separate" who has "conjoined" (separate, moreover, not through the harshness of divorce, which (harshness) He censures and restrains, but through the debt of death) if, indeed, "one of two sparrows falleth not on the ground without the Father's will.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Henry, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Clarke, Gill, Calvin and Keil & Delitzsch are in the public domain; Tyndale Open Study Notes © Tyndale House Publishers, CC BY-SA 4.0 — all from the Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org). Rashi: the Rosenbaum & Silbermann Pentateuch (public domain) and the Judaica Press and Metsudah Tanakh (CC BY), via Sefaria. Spurgeon's Treasury of David: public domain (lyteword's markdown edition, CC0).
