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How to Strengthen Marriage BondsThe Watchtower—1993 | August 15
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The Pharisees contended that Moses made provisions for divorce by prescribing the issuing of “a certificate of dismissal.” Jesus answered them: “Moses, out of regard for your hardheartedness, made the concession to you of divorcing your wives, but such has not been the case from the beginning. I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of fornication, and marries another commits adultery.”—Matthew 19:3-9.
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How to Strengthen Marriage BondsThe Watchtower—1993 | August 15
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Mosaic Law Provision
By the time the Mosaic Law was given, marital relationships had deteriorated to the point that Jehovah, out of regard for the Israelites’ hardheartedness, made a provision for divorce. (Deuteronomy 24:1) It was not God’s purpose for the Israelites to misuse this law to divorce their wives because of petty faults, as is evident from his command that they were to love their fellow as themselves. (Leviticus 19:18) Even the issuing of a certificate of divorce served as a deterrent because, as part of the process of writing the certificate, the husband wanting a divorce had to consult duly authorized men, who would have endeavored to effect a reconciliation. No, God did not give this law to establish any right to divorce one’s wife “on every sort of ground.”—Matthew 19:3.
However, the Israelites eventually ignored the spirit of the law and exploited this clause to get divorced on whatever basis suited their whims. By the fifth century B.C.E., they were dealing treacherously with the wives of their youth, divorcing them on all sorts of grounds. Jehovah firmly told them that he hated a divorcing. (Malachi 2:14-16) It was against this background that Jesus condemned divorce as the Israelites were practicing it in his day.
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