“And” or “In order to” Remarry?

How to cite this article: David N. Bivin, “‘And’ or ‘In order to’ Remarry?” Jerusalem Perspective 50 (1996): 10-17, 35-38 [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/2756/].

Revised: 4 September 2012

In the whole of Luke’s Gospel, there is just one context in which the verbs “divorce” and “marry” appear together. That passage—only one verse—ought to contribute to a correct understanding of Jesus’ attitude toward divorce and remarriage; however, there exists no scholarly consensus on the passage’s meaning.

Any man who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and a man who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery. (Luke 16:18)

In the first half of Luke 16:18, Jesus appears to teach that a man who has divorced his wife should not remarry.^[25] In the verse’s second half, Jesus seems to say that no man should marry a divorced woman. Does this simplistic interpretation of a difficult verse do justice to Jesus’ approach to Torah?

Ketubah from Sena, Iran, 1908. Groom: The physician…Daniel, son of the physician Solomon. Bride: Habiba, daughter of the physician, Ephraim. Dimensions: 68.5 x 44 cm.

Luke 16:18 is very “Semitic,” that is, it is full of Semitic idioms, an indication that Jesus may have uttered the saying in Hebrew or Aramaic. Many scholars in Israel have learned that the most effective way to approach a passage from the synoptic gospels is, first, to put its Greek text into Hebrew, then, study the resultant Hebrew reconstruction in light of first-century Jewish exegesis.^[26]

• ^[1] The Greek word καί (kai) can mean "and," "also," "even," "just," "as," and in certain expressions, "or." See Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, revised and augmented by Henry Stuart Jones with Roderick McKenzie (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 857-858. Grammars and lexicons of New Testament Greek can be misleading since, often, the only support they provide for a particular nuance of kai is a citation from the synoptic gospels. Such citations may merely reflect the synoptic gospels' Semitic background. ↩
• ^[2] See Francis Brown, with the cooperation of S. R. Driver and Charles Briggs, The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1979; reprint of Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament [London: Oxford University Press, 1907]), 254, §3. The best categorization of the nuances of vav (with biblical examples of each) is found in A New Concordance of the Bible, ed. Abraham Even-Shoshan (Jerusalem: Kiryath Sepher, 1987), 317 (Hebrew). ↩
• ^[3] Other examples are: "...I will not accept so much as a thread or the thong of a sandal belonging to you, and [i.e., so that] you will not be able to say, 'It is I who made Abram rich'" (Gen. 14:23); "Do this and [i.e., so that] you may live" (Gen. 42:18); "They [Aaron and his sons] shall wash [their hands and feet] in water and [i.e., so that] they will not die" (Exod. 30:21). ↩
• ^[4] For more than a decade, I assumed that no scholar before me had noticed this Semitic nuance of καί (kai, and). Neither standard English commentaries on Luke (e.g., The Anchor Bible [Doubleday]; The International Critical Commentary [T. & T. Clark]; The New International Greek Testament Commentary [Eerdmans]) nor the modern English translations I checked mention it. However, unique discoveries are extremely rare in the field of gospel scholarship: a legion of brilliant scholars have carefully combed the gospels. Indeed, as I prepared this article for publication, I came across a New Testament version whose translator had recognized the idiom: The New Testament: A Private Translation in the Language of the People by Charles B. Williams (Chicago: Moody Press, 1958). Williams' translation of Luke 16:18a reads: "Any man who divorces his wife to marry another woman commits adultery."

  Williams added a footnote to the word "to" of his translation: "And, in Aramaic source, expressing purpose." Since Williams may have gotten his insight from a reference work he used, it is likely that at least one other scholar has noticed this interesting feature of Luke 16:18a. In any case, Williams' translation is remarkable considering the lack of attention the idiom has received. As to Williams' reference to Aramaic, it must be pointed out that the idiom also exists in Hebrew. ↩

• ^[5] Including the opening πᾶς ὁ (pas ho, anyone or everyone who...), the equivalent of Hebrew -כָּל הַ or -כָּל שֶׁ (kol ha- or kol she-, anyone, or everyone, who...), so typical of rabbinic sayings. Compare, for example, these sayings from the Mishnah: "Anyone who delves into four things—What is above; What is below; What was formerly; What will be hereafter—it were better for him if he had not come into the world" (Hagigah 2:1); "Anyone who forgets one word of what he has learned is worthy of death" (Avot 3:9); "Anyone who profanes the name of Heaven in secret will be requited openly" (Avot 4:4); "Anyone who honors the Torah is himself honored by others" (Avot 4:6); and "Anyone who fulfills the Torah in poverty will in the end fulfill it in wealth" (Avot 4:9).

  The pas ho construction is as frequent in the gospels as in rabbinic literature. For example: "anyone who is angry with his brother" (Matt 5:22); "anyone who looks at a woman lustfully" (Matt 5:28); "everyone who hears these words of mine" (Matt 7:26); "everyone who exalts himself will be humbled" (Luke 14:11); and "everyone who falls on that stone" (Luke 20:18).

  Notice that πᾶς ὁ ἀπολύων (pas ho apolūōn, anyone divorcing, anyone who divorces), is a Matthean-Lukan minor agreement against Mark ( Matt 5:32a; Mark 10:11; Luke 16:18a). Mark gives ὃς ἂν ἀπολύσῃ (hos an apolūsē, whoever if he shall divorce...). ↩

• ^[6] For examples of the expression הַמְּגָרֵשׁ אֶת אִשְׁתּוֹ (hamegaresh ’et ’ishtō..., the [man] who divorces his wife...), see Mishnah, Gittin 8:9 and 9:1. ↩
• ^[7] This example was called to my attention by Joseph Frankovic. ↩
• ^[8] The phrase דְּבַר עֶרְוָה (d^evar ‘ervāh; a thing of indecency) occurs a second time in the Mishnah, in Yevamot 3:5. ↩
• ^[9] Joseph Frankovic pointed out to me that Saul Lieberman has suggested a possible reason for Rabbi Akiva's stance. In Lieberman's comment on Tosefta, Sotah 5:10 ("[A man who marries an unsuitable woman not only violates five commandments,] but also causes propagation and procreation to cease from the earth"), he explains:

  In Avot de-Rabbi Natan, version A, chpt. 3 [ed. Schechter, p. 8^a]; parallel to version B, chpt. 4 [ed. Schechter, p. 8^b])...it is because he [the husband] hates her that he wishes she were dead, and as a result he causes propagation and procreation to cease from the earth. It appears that this was the reason Rabbi Akiva permitted a man to divorce his wife if he found another more beautiful than she, since, in Akiva's opinion it is better for him to divorce her than for him to keep her and be beset constantly by the thought: "I wish she were dead." See Derek Eretz Rabbah, chpt 11 [ed. Higger, p. 313]. (Tosefta Ki-fshutah: A Comprehensive Commentary on the Tosefta [New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1973], p. 663 [to lines 83-84] [Hebrew])

  The Derek Eretz Rabbah passage, to which Lieberman refers, reads:

  Ben Azzai says, "He who hates his wife is a murderer, for it is said, 'And invents charges against her' [Deut. 22:14], and in the end he may hire false witnesses to testify against her and have her brought hastily to the place of stoning."

  ↩

• ^[10] Shmuel Safrai has informed me that in several instances Jesus' halachot, or rulings, follow those of Shammai rather than Hillel. Further, where the status of women is at issue, Jesus' halachot, like Shammai's, always strengthen the woman's position. See J. N. Epstein's discussion of Mark 7:11-12 (= Matt 15:5) and Matt 23:16-18 in his Introduction to Tannaitic Literature: Mishna, Tosephta and Halakhic Midrashim (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, and Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1957), 377-378 (Hebrew).

  It is frequently assumed that Jesus was closer in outlook to Hillel than to Shammai. That is not true, as Jesus' halachah on divorce shows. According to Safrai, Jews in the Galilee usually followed the halachot of Shammai (private communication), which often were stricter than those of Hillel. Since Jesus was a Galilean, we should not be surprised that he gave rulings that agree with the opinions of Shammai. ↩

• ^[11] Ἀπολελυμένην is the feminine singular accusative of the perfect middle participle of the verb ἀπολῦσαι. ↩
• ^[12] On the minor agreements' importance, see Robert L. Lindsey, A Hebrew Translation of the Gospel of Mark (2nd ed.; Jerusalem: Dugith, 1973), xv, 14-19; Lindsey, The Jesus Sources: Understanding the Gospels (Tulsa, OK: HaKesher, 1990), 60-65; and Lindsey, "An Introduction to Synoptic Studies," under the Subheading "Laying the Groundwork."

  In addition to the minor agreement, Matthew and Luke also agree against Mark on the general content of the saying's second half: "And he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery" against "And if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery." ↩

• ^[13] Other examples of Hebrew-style doublets in the synoptic gospels are: "eating and drinking...a glutton and a drunkard" (Matt 11:19; Luke 7:34); "the wise and understanding" (Luke 10:21); "prophets and apostles" (Luke 11:49); and "kings and governors" (Luke 21:12).

  Other examples of the synoptic gospels' many parallelisms are: "If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out.... And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off" (Matt 5:29-30); "Love you enemies, and pray for those who persecute you" (Matt 5:44); "He makes his sun shine on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous" (Matt 5:45); "Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find" (Matt 7:7; Luke 11:9); "A disciple is not above his teacher, and a slave is not above his master" (Matt 10:24-25); "We piped for you, but you would not dance; we wailed, but you would not mourn" (Matt 11:17; Luke 7:32); "My yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matt 11:30); "Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush" (Luke 6:44); "Whoever tries to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it" (Luke 17:32); and "Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted" (Matt 23:12). ↩

• ^[14] In middle (post-biblical) Hebrew, the article is often employed to specify the person previously mentioned. In this reconstruction, "the divorced woman," would mean "that divorced woman," the woman divorced in that way. The brilliant English translator Richard Francis Weymouth apparently sensed this, and so translated Luke 16:18 as: "Every man who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and he who marries her when so divorced from her husband commits adultery" (The New Testament in Modern Speech).

  The phrase ἀπὸ ἀνδρός (apo andros, from her husband) was probably necessary in Greek to clarify the word ἀπολελυμένην (apolelūmenēn, [a woman] having been dismissed, or discharged), which may not have been clear to Greek readers; however, although the expression does appear once in biblical Hebrew (אִשָּׁה גְּרוּשָׁה מֵאִישָׁהּ, ’ishāh g^erūshāh mē’ishāh, a woman divorced from her husband; Lev. 21:7), "from her husband" was unnecessary in post-biblical Hebrew because the root g-r-sh had become a technical term. ↩

• ^[15] This and the two preceding sentences express Shmuel Safrai’s understanding of Luke 16:18b (private communication). ↩
• ^[16] Their situation would be similar to the situation of a wife and her second husband, who married assuming that her first husband was dead:

  The case of a woman whose husband traveled to a country beyond the sea, who, after being told, "Your husband is dead," remarried and then her first husband returned—she must leave them both. [If she wishes to marry again,] she must receive a bill of divorce from both. She can present no claims against either for her marriage settlement...or alimony... A child fathered by either husband [including the first if he resumed living with her] is a bastard.... (Mishnah, Yevamot 10:1)

  This is Safrai’s suggestion (private communication). There is another possible interpretation of Luke 16:18b, assuming Luke 16:18 was originally a Hebraic doublet. Jesus may have said: "Any man who divorces his wife and marries another is committing adultery, and any woman who divorces her husband and marries another is committing adultery." Support for this reconstruction comes from a rabbinic saying, quoted above in part:

  He who begins to wish that his wife will die and [i.e., in order that] he will inherit her property, or that she will die and [i.e., in order that] he will marry her sister, his wife will outlive him [literally, in the end she will bury him]; likewise, she who begins to wish that her husband will die and [i.e., in order that] she will be married to another, her husband will outlive her [literally, in the end he will bury her]. (Tosefta, Sotah 5:10)

  Joseph Frankovic pointed out to me the importance of this rabbinic saying as evidence that Jesus' saying might be a Hebraic doublet. In Avot de-Rabbi Natan there is a variant of the Tosefta saying:

  He [Rabbi Akiva] also said: "He who begins to wish that his wife will die and [i.e., in order that] he will inherit her property, or that she will die and [i.e., in order that] he will marry her sister, and he who begins to wish that his brother will die and [i.e., in order that] he will marry his wife, they will outlive him [literally, in the end they will bury him during their lifetimes]." About such a man Scripture says, "Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and whoever breaks through a fence will be bitten by a snake" [Eccl. 10:8]. (Avot de-Rabbi Natan, version A, chpt. 3 [ed. Schechter, p. 8^a])

  The above saying from Tosefta is a typical Hebraic doublet: "He who wishes his wife were dead..., and she who wishes her husband were dead...." The saying's second half is a warning to wives. They fall prey to the same sins to which husbands are prone—in this case, wishing for a spouse's death. Like the sins mentioned in ;Matt 5:21-22 and Matt 5:27-28, this sin is not an act, but a wicked thought. In Jesus' approach to Torah, a "light" commandment is just as important as a "heavy" commandment (Matt 5:19)—to avoid murder, one must not be angry with one's brother; to avoid adultery, one must not look lustfully at another man's wife.

  The rabbinic saying's structure suggests that Jesus' saying may have been a Hebraic doublet, too. Jesus' saying may contain a "vav of purpose," indicating that he was referring to a husband who divorces his wife for the purpose of marrying another woman. Here, also, along with an intent to acquire property, the husband's motive is to marry another. Notice that ותינשא לאחר (v^etinase’ l^e’aḥer, and she will be married to another) occurs in the second half of the rabbinic saying (Tosefta, Sotah 5:10). This is the feminine form of the expression ("marry another") found in Jesus' saying. The word אַחֵר (’aḥer, another) is the masculine form of אַחֶרֶת (’aḥeret), the word Jesus probably used. The same Hebrew expression appears in a Dead Sea scroll: "He shall not take in addition to her another wife, for she alone shall be with him all the days of her life; and if she dies, he shall marry another from his father's house, from his clan" (11QTemple 57, 18-19).

  According to Jewish halachah, a woman cannot divorce her husband; the husband alone can declare a divorce. However, she can scheme to end a marriage relationship in order to marry another. There are two examples of Jewish women contemporary with Jesus who initiated divorce. Marital unfaithfulness, divorce and remarriage, permeated the royal house of King Herod. Josephus mentions two women members of the Herodian family who initiated divorce. The first is Herodias, who deserted her first husband, Herod (son of Herod the Great and Mariamme II), to marry his half-brother, Antipas (son of Herod the Great and Malthace the Samaritan), with whom she had fallen in love:

  They [Herod and Herodias] had a daughter Salome, after whose birth Herodias, taking it into her head to flout the way of our fathers, married Herod [Antipas], her husband's brother by the same father, who was tetrarch of Galilee; to do this she parted from a living husband. (Antiq. 18:136 [Loeb Classical Library]; cf. 18:109ff.)

  Salome, Herod the Great's sister, also initiated her divorce:

  Some time afterwards Salome had occasion to quarrel with Costobarus [governor of Idumea] and soon sent him a document dissolving their marriage, which was not in accordance with Jewish law. For it is (only) the man who is permitted by us to do this, and not even a divorced woman may marry again on her own initiative unless her former husband consents. Salome, however, did not choose to follow her country's law but acted on her own authority and repudiated her marriage.... (Antiq. 15:259-260 [ Loeb Classical Library])

  Therefore, in line with this alternate interpretation, we may paraphrase Luke 16:18b as follows: "Any woman who causes her husband to divorce her—for instance, by feigning she no longer is attracted to him—in order to marry another man, is committing adultery." Though possible, this interpretation of Luke 16:18b is less plausible than Safrai's interpretation since the participants in an early first-century rabbinic debate would probably not speak of a wife divorcing her husband.

  Brad H. Young suggests a third interpretation of Luke 16:18b (Jesus the Jewish Theologian [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995], 114-115). Young notes that in Jewish halachah a woman who is divorced because of an adulterous relationship is not permitted to marry her paramour (Mishnah, Sotah 5:1); therefore, Luke 16:18b ("he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery") could mean, "he who marries a woman who obtained a divorce merely for the sake of her second marriage commits adultery." In this interpretation, however, Jesus' statement would not be an exegetical innovation. ↩

• ^[17] Safrai points out that an innovation, or its most powerful formulation, usually comes at the end of a sage's teaching (private communication). ↩
• ^[18] Safrai believes that Shammai would have been very impressed had he heard Jesus' statement, and would have remarked: "Yes, that's right! That is the logical extension of my ruling that a man may not divorce his wife unless he has found 'a thing of indecency' in her" (private communication). ↩
• ^[19] Scripture records that even God himself issued a bill of divorce on the grounds of adultery (Jer. 3:8; Isa. 50:1). ↩
• ^[20] Although not stated explicitly in 1 Cor. 7:15, we may assume that Paul is relating to members of the community who married before becoming believers. This assumption is supported by other statements of the apostle, such as his rule that if a woman's husband dies, she is permitted to remarry, "but he [her second husband] must belong to the Lord" (1 Cor. 7:39). Paul forbade the Corinthians to "be unequally yoked with unbelievers" (2 Cor. 6:14), perhaps referring to marriage with an unbeliever. Thus, The New English Bible translates: "Do not unite yourselves with unbelievers; they are no fit mates for you." ↩
• ^[21] See Israel Abrahams, Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1917, 1924; reprinted in one volume by Ktav Publishing House, New York, 1967), 1:76-77. See also the entry "Divorce" in Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter, 1972), 6:126-129. For an excellent introduction to the subject of divorce, see Michael Hilton with Gordian Marshall, The Gospels and Rabbinic Judaism: A Study Guide (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, and New York: Anti-Defamation League B'nai B'rith, 1988), 119-135. ↩
• ^[22] The halachah, which is found in the Mishnah (Yevamot 6:6; cf. Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 64^a), states:

  No man may neglect the commandment "Be fruitful and multiply" [Gen. 1:28] unless he already has children: according to the school of Shammai, two sons; according to the school of Hillel, a son and a daughter, as it is written, "Male and female created he them" [Gen. 5:2]. If a man married a woman and lived with her for ten years, but she bore no children, he may not neglect [any longer the commandment to beget children. He must take another wife]. Upon being divorced by her first husband, she may be married to another man, and [if she bore no children] this second husband may live with her for [a maximum of] ten years. If she miscarried, [the ten years] is calculated from the time of the miscarriage. The obligation to "be fruitful and multiply" is incumbent on the man, not the woman. Rabbi Yohanan ben Beroka, however, ruled: "[On them both.] Of them both it is written, 'And God blessed them and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply."'"

  If the barren wife said, "Let Heaven judge between me and you," that is, if she did not want to leave her husband, the sages advised, "Let them make a way of request between them" (Tosefta, Sotah 5:12), in other words, let the couple turn to God in prayer.

  The sages were extremely practical and were not above counseling a childless couple to create for themselves an atmosphere of intimacy; therefore, they sometimes made this additional suggestion: "Have an intimate meal together" (Jerusalem Talmud, Nedarim 42^d, chpt. 11, halachah 13). There is an exquisite story in the Midrash about a sage who offered that advice.

  There was a woman in Sidon who lived ten years with her husband without having children. The couple went to Rabbi Shim'on ben Yochai [c. 150 A.D.] and told him they wanted to be divorced. He said to them: "I implore you, just as you were joined together with feasting, do not separate without a festive meal." They accepted his advice. They held their own private celebration, enjoying a lavish meal and drinking freely. When the husband was in a good mood, he said to his wife: "My daughter, choose any precious object from my house you wish and take it with you to your father's house." What did the wife do? As soon as he was asleep, she motioned to her slaves and handmaidens to pick him up and carry him on his bed to her father's house. In the middle of the night, when the effects of the wine had worn off, he awoke. He said [to his wife]: "My daughter, where am I?" "You are in my father's house," she replied. "What am I doing in your father's house?" he said. She answered: "Didn't you tell me last night, 'Choose any precious object from my house you wish and take it with you to your father's house'? There is nothing in the world more precious to me than you."

  The couple returned to Rabbi Shim'on ben Yochai. He stood and prayed for them, and subsequently the woman became pregnant. (Song of Songs Rabbah 1:4, §2; to 1:4)

  Shmuel Safrai called to my attention the rabbinic passages above: the halachah in the Mishnah, the statement in Tosefta, the reference to the Jerusalem Talmud, and the story from the Midrash. I am responsible for the translation of these passages. ↩

• ^[23] Notice that God detests a husband who divorces "the wife of your marriage covenant":

  You also do this: You cover the LORD's altar with tears. You weep and moan because he no longer pays attention to your oblations or accepts what you offer. You ask, "Why?" It is because the LORD is a witness between you and the wife of your youth, whom you have betrayed, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.... Do not betray the wife of your youth. "I detest divorce," says the LORD, the God of Israel.... (Mal. 2:13-16)

  Compare the warnings in Prov. 5:1-23 and Prov. 6:20-7:27 to flee the adulteress. Notice especially the reference to "the wife of your youth" in Prov. 5:18. Cf. Isa. 54:6, "Like a wife deserted and dejected, like a wife of youth who has been rejected." ↩

• ^[24] John 7: 11. The best manuscripts of John's gospel do not have 7:53-8:11. In members of manuscript family 13 (mss. 13, 69, 124, etc.), this passage appears after Luke 21:38. Robert L. Lindsey, noting the passage's Lukan vocabulary, believes that, originally, it was located between Luke 19:46 and Luke 19:47 (Jesus, Rabbi and Lord: A Lifetime’s Search for the Meaning of Jesus’ Words, 154-158). ↩
• ^[25] Thus, apparently, Jesus would not consider a man an adulterer if he divorced his wife but did not remarry. ↩
• ^[26] The conclusions presented in this article grew out of a study of the nuances of the Hebrew word -ו (vav, and) that I carried out in the mid-1980s. I found that many of these Hebraic nuances were displayed in the Gospels by καί (kai, and), vav‘s Greek equivalent. The results of this study were initially published in 1987 (David Bivin, “The Hebrew Connection: Vav,” Dispatch from Jerusalem [1st Quarter, 1987]: 7), then revised and republished in 1989 (idem, [“Hebrew Nuggets” series,] “Lesson 17: ‘Vav [Part 1],’” Jerusalem Perspective 17 [Feb. 1989]: 3; “Lesson 18: ‘Vav [Part 2],’” Jerusalem Perspective 18 [Mar. 1989]: 3). ↩