Thursday, September 12, 2019

Does God Hate Divorce?

According to the translations of these three Bibles, a man appears to be commanded to divorce his wife if he hates her:
when thou hatest her, leave thou her, saith the Lord God of Israel. Forsooth wickedness shall cover the cloth of him, saith the Lord of hosts; keep ye your spirit, and do not ye despise. (Wycliffe Bible, 1388)

"If thou hatest her, put her away," sayeth the Lord God of Israel "and give her a clothing for the scorn," sayeth the Lord of hosts. Look well then to your spirit, and deceive her not. (Matthew's Bible, 1537)

"If thou hatest her, put her away," saith the Lord God of Israel, "yet he covereth the injury under his garment," saith the Lord of hosts: therefore keep yourselves in your spirit, and transgress not. (Geneva Bible, 1560)

According to the translations of these two Bibles (the CSB being a major revision of the earlier HSCB), a man who hates and divorces his wife merely commits an injustice against her:
"For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless." (English Standard Version [ESV], 2001)

"If he hates and divorces [his wife]," says the Lord God of Israel, "he covers his garment with injustice," says the Lord of Hosts. Therefore, watch yourselves carefully, and do not act treacherously. (Holman Christian Standard Bible [HCSB], 2009)

"If he hates and divorces his wife," says the Lord God of Israel, "he covers his garment with injustice," says the Lord of Hosts. Therefore, watch yourselves carefully, and do not act treacherously. (Christian Standard Bible [CSB], 2017)

According to the translation of this Bible, the man who divorces his wife commits violence against her:
He that rejects her, sending her away, said the LORD God of Israel, covers the violence with his garment, said the LORD of the hosts; therefore take heed in your spirit, and do not be treacherous. (Jubilee Bible, 2000)
 
According to the translation of this Bible, nothing is said one way or the other about divorce:
For the LORD, the God of Israel, says that no one should conceal the iniquity in his robe; therefore take heed to your spirit, and do not deal treacherously. (The Syriac Peshitta, 1933)
 
According to the translations of these 17 Bibles, God says matter-of-factly that He hates divorce:
For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously. (King James Version [KJV], 1611)

For I hate putting away, saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, and him that covereth his garment with violence, saith Jehovah of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously. (American Standard Version [ASV], 1901)

"For I hate divorce, says the LORD the God of Israel, and covering one's garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless." (Revised Standard Version [RSV], 1952)

"For I hate divorce," says the LORD, the God of Israel, "and him who covers his garment with wrong and violence," says the LORD of hosts. "Therefore keep watch on your spirit, so that you do not deal treacherously [with your wife.] (Amplified Bible [AMP], 1965)

"For I hate divorce," says the LORD , the God of Israel, "and him who covers his garment with wrong," says the LORD of hosts. "So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously." (New American Standard Bible [NASB], 1971)

"I hate divorce," says the Lord God of Israel. "I hate it when one of you does such a cruel thing to his wife. Make sure that you do not break your promise to be faithful to your wife." (Good News Translation [GNT], 1976)

"I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel, "and I hate a man's covering himself with violence as well as with his garment," says the LORD Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith. (New International Version [NIV], 1978)

"For the Lord God of Israel says That He hates divorce, For it covers one's garment with violence," Says the Lord of hosts. "Therefore take heed to your spirit, That you do not deal treacherously." (New King James Version [NKJV], 1982)

For I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel, and covering one's garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless. (New Revised Standard Version [NRSV], 1989)

"I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel. "I hate the person who covers himself with violence," says the LORD of Armies. "Be careful not to be unfaithful." (God's Word [GW], 1995)

"For I hate divorce!" says the LORD, the God of Israel. "To divorce your wife is to overwhelm her with cruelty, " says the LORD of Heaven's Armies. "So guard your heart; do not be unfaithful to your wife." (New Living Translation [NLT], 1996)

"For I hate divorce," says ADONAI the God of Isra'el, "and him who covers his clothing with violence," says ADONAI-Tzva'ot. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and don't break faith. (Complete Jewish Bible [CJB], 1998)

because he hates divorce, says the LORD God of Israel, and he also hates the one covering his garment with violence, says the LORD of heavenly forces. Guard your own life, and don't cheat. (Common English Bible [CEB], 2001)

"I hate divorce," says the God of Israel. God-of-the-Angel-Armies says, "I hate the violent dismembering of the 'one flesh' of marriage." So watch yourselves. Don't let your guard down. Don't cheat. (The Message [MSG], 2002)

"I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel, "and the one who is guilty of violence," says the LORD who rules over all. "Pay attention to your conscience, and do not be unfaithful." (New English Translation [NET], 2005)

The LORD God of Israel says, "I hate divorce. And I hate the person who [or The one who hates and divorces] does cruel things as easily as he puts on cloths [covers his clothes in violence]," says the LORD All-Powerful [Almighty; of Heaven's Armies; of hosts]. So be careful [on your guard]. And do not break your trust [be unfaithful]. (The Expanded Bible [EXB], 2011)

"For the LORD, the God of Israel, says that He hates divorce; for it covers one's garment with volence, says the LORD of Hosts. Therefore take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously. (Modern English Version [MEV], 2014)

So, does the Word of God actually teach that God hates divorce, or does it have something entirely different to say? For the answer, we will turn to those renown Hebrew scholars, Keil & Delitzsch:
In v. 15a the prophet shows still further the reprehensible character of the divorce, by rebutting the appeal to Abraham's conduct towards Hagar as inapplicable. The true interpretation of this hemistich, which has been explained in very different, and to some extent in very marvellous ways, is obvious enough if we only bear in mind that the subordinate clause וּשְׁאָר רוּחַ לוֹ, from its very position and from the words themselves, can only contain a more precise definition of the subject of the principle cause. The affirmation "a remnant of spirit is (was) to him" does not apply to God, but only to man, as L. de Dieu has correctly observed. Rūăch denote here, as in Num. 27:18, Josh, 5:1, 1 Kings 10:5, not so much intelligence and consideration, as the higher power breathed into man by God, which determines that moral and religious life to which we are accustomed to give the name of virtue. By 'echâd (one), therefore we cannot understand God, but only a man; and לֹא אֶחָד (not any one = no one, not one man) is the subject of the sentence, whilst the object to עָשָׂה must be supplied from the previous sentence: "No man, who has even a remnant of reason, or of sense for right and wrong, has done," sc. what ye are doing, namely, faithlessly put away the wife of his youth. To this there is appended the objection: "And what did the one do?" which the prophet adduces as a possible exception that may be taken to his statement, for the purpose of refuting it. The words וּמָה הָאֶחָד are elliptical, the verb עָשָׂה, which may easily be supplied from the previous clause, being omitted (cf. Eccl. 2:12). הָאֶחָד, not unus aliquis, but the well-known one, whom it was most natural to think of when the question in hand was that of putting away a wife, viz., Abraham, who put away Hagar, by whom he had begotten Ishmael, and who was therefore also his wife (Gen. 21). The prophet therefore replies, that Abraham sought to obtain the seed promised him by God, i.e., he dismissed Hagar, because God promised to give him the desired posterity, not in Ishmael through the maid Hagar, but through Sarah in Isaac, so that in doing this he was simply acting in obedience to the word of God (Gen. 21:12). After meeting this possible objection, Malachi warns his contemporaries to beware of faithlessly putting away their wives. The Vav before nishmartem is the Vav rel., through which the perfect acquires the force of a cohortative as a deduction from the facts before them, as in ועשׂית in 1 Kings 2:6 (see Ewald, §342, c). נִשְׁמַר בְּרוּחוֹ is synonymous with נִשְׁמַר בְּנַפְשׁוֹ in Jer. 17:21, and this is equivalent to נִשְׁמַר לְנַפְשֹׁוֹ in Deut. 4:15 and Josh. 23:11. The instrumental view of בְ ("by means of the Spirit:" Koehler) is thus proved to be inadmissible. "Take heed to your spirit," i.e., beware of losing your spirit. We need not take rūăch in a different sense here from that in which it is used in the clause immediately preceding; for with the loss of the spiritual and moral vis vitae, which has been received from God, the life itself perishes. What it is that they are to beware of is stated in the last clause, which is attached by the simple copula (Vav), and in which the address passes from the second person into the third, to express what is affirmed as applying to every man. This interchange of thou (in wife of thy youth) and he (in יִבְגֹּד) in the same clause appears very strange to our mode of thought and speech; but it is not without analogy in Hebrew (e.g., in Isa. 1:29; cf. Ewald, §319, a), so that we have no right to alter יִבְגֹּד into תִּבְגֹּד, since the ancient versions and the readings of certain codices do not furnish sufficient critical authority for such a change. The subject in יִבְגֹּד is naturally thought of as indefinite: any one, men. This warning is accounted for in v. 16, first of all in the statement that God hates putting away. שַׁלַּח is the inf. constr. piel and the object to שָׂנֵא: "the sending away (of a wife), divorce." שָׂנֵא is a participle, the pronominal subject being omitted, as in maggīd in Zech. 9:12, because it may easily be inferred from the following words: אָמַר ייִ (saith the Lord of hosts). The thought is not at variance with Deut. 24:1ff., where the putting away of a wife is allowed; for this was allowed because of the hardness of their hearts, whereas God desires that a marriage should be kept sacred (cf. Matt. 19:3ff. and the comm. on Deut. 24:1-5). A second reason for condemning the divorce is given in the words וְכִסָּה חָמָס עַל לְ, which do not depend upon כִּי שָׂנֵא, but form a sentence co-ordinate to this. We may either render these words, "he (who puts away his wife) covers his garment with sin," or "sin covers his garment." The meaning is the same in either case, namely, that wickedness will adhere irremoveably to such a man. The figurative expression may be explained form the idea that the dress reflects the inward pat of a man, and therefore a soiled garment is a symbol of uncleanness of heart (cf. Zech. 3:4; Isa. 64:5; Rev. 3:4; 7:14). With a repetition of the warning to beware of this faithlessness, the subject is brought to a close.

With that said, it is quite clear that the evidence points to the fact that God does indeed hate divorce. Those who say otherwise are either looking for excuses for themselves, or looking to provide excuses for others. In either case, what is in their heart is being revealed and they are engaging in disobedience and rebellion against God Almighty and His Holy Word.