Marriage is a God-ordained institution, and He would not allow His people to treat it casually. One cannot read the first five verses of Deuteronomy 24 without sensing how God feels about the seriousness of the marital commitment. We need to know at the onset of our discussion that divorce was never God’s intention. Our Lord Jesus clearly states in Matthew 19:6 that “those whom God had put together let no man put asunder.” God never wanted any divorce from the start. But when pressed by the Pharisees on why then did Moses allow it, Jesus responded by saying that it was because of the hardness of man’s heart. So we see that divorce was never what God wanted for any marriage. The provision was made only because God knew that with fallen men it was something unavoidable. They could be so hard of heart that they would be unyieldingly inflexible and stubbornly refused to submit to the will of God. So this instruction in Deuteronomy was essentially given to ensure that a man would not casually divorce his wife.
Therefore,
in a divorce, the man had to send his wife off with a certificate of divorce.
It was to be an official thing. He just could not send her off without the
official document. This was needful to prove that she was not an immoral woman,
and thus free to marry another man. However, should the second man also divorce
her or die, the first man could not take her back as his wife again. For God
considered this latter act a defilement, an evil to get rid of in His covenant
community. This stipulation was also to get the man to be more responsible
and to consider carefully before he divorced his wife and gave her the walking
certificate. Clearly, God did not want the unfortunate woman to be treated
cavalierly like a ball being passed around between two imprudent men. The
intention of verse 5 also points to the fact that God views a marriage
seriously. A newly married man would be exempted from military duty for a year
to grant him time to satisfy his wife. Notice that in a marriage the man must
make satisfying his wife a priority. A satisfied wife, believe it or not, is a
key to a blissful marriage.
What can we take away from these verses? Firstly, divorce should not be the casual option for a Christian marriage. It must be weighed carefully. A Christian marriage is not just a commitment between two people. It is a commitment of three people, the husband, the wife, and the Lord. The first question to ask in any impending divorce should be, “How would my divorce affect the name of God?” Secondly, we learn that marriage must not be taken lightly. Every man must enter marriage with the intention to make it good. No matter what problem one may encounter, there is none too big that it cannot be resolved with love and understanding. Remember in Ephesians 5, every man is called to love his wife sacrificially like the way Christ loves the church. And every wife is called to submit to her husband as unto the Lord. Thirdly, a husband must take time to make his wife happy, not only for one year but for the rest of their marriage journey. Her happiness is the key to a blissful marriage. Verse 5 suggests that to do that time is the essence. We need to take time to know and to do what is right to make each other happy. Be sure to make our marriage good!
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