Kind of interesting the parallel between this Hosea and the first Hosea (Joshua). Both of them commanded by God to husband a woman/people that no man in his right mind would want the responsibility for. Both of the new spouses 'ruined' and tainted by covenant breaking.
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Divorced: Abandoned, Put Away or Kicked to the Curb
- Thread starter Verifyveritas76
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Threads are now split, and the side convo re the scriptures and the spoken word of God is now the Abraham and Isaac thread.
Just really saw this. And it does behoove us to get it right.
NO! "Shalach" and [the English word] 'divorced' are NOT the same thing! A woman who has been been put away or "sent away" ['shalach'] "still has a living husband". She is only "divorced" (process of Deuteronomy 24:1, repeated almost word-for-word in v 3) IFF she is sent away AND has a sefer keritutah (certificate of divorcement, aka the written witness of her now "ex-" husband).
The difference can be life and death.
This is the ROOT of the general mistranslation and terrible misunderstanding of Yahushua's exposition in Matthew 5:32 (et al). A husband may - but is arguably not required to or even advised to - send a wife away 'for cause', like adultery or suspicion of such. This is not 'abandonment, ' and since she does NOT have a 'get' she is NOT 'divorced' and may not claim to marry another man. (Shaul's midrash in I Cor. 7:10-11 is related, to the extent that a wife who abandons her husband is similarly NOT free to claim 'remarriage'.)
Thus, a woman who is 'put away', may -- or may not -- have a 'get'. To give 'backsliding Israel' one, in SPITE of her continued whoring, is NOT required, and is arguably an act of mercy by Yah, because "He bears her guilt!" (Besides, there is NO ONE like unto YHVH , no other worthy. While Israel could and did continue in whoring/idolatry - just who else could she 'marry' anyway?)
Not at all. Continued whoring, perhaps, but arguably no other 'husband' for Israel...
Ezekiel 23 is arguably even more poignant and graphically apropos.
OUCH! Sorry, but how wrong could that be? What kind of lesson is taught by a broken metaphor? (Do we presume that God Alone can have two wives, but He violates His own "Law" there, too?)
A FAR better understanding of His Word, and the real lessons it is intended to teach is, is to read it in context, en toto, and observe that is the DIFFERENCES between the examples and precedents He cites, and His "statutes, judgments, and commandments" which "change NOT" that really teach us the Big Picture.
YHVH gives us more than two witnesses of His two wives -- two houses -- and His grief at their whoring and idolatry. We are STILL in exile (still 'put away') as a result. There has been, and arguably still will be, chastening aplenty. And in SPITE of all that, He still loves us, and continually proclaims the requirement for t'shuvah: "Return to Me!"
NO! "Shalach" and [the English word] 'divorced' are NOT the same thing! A woman who has been been put away or "sent away" ['shalach'] "still has a living husband". She is only "divorced" (process of Deuteronomy 24:1, repeated almost word-for-word in v 3) IFF she is sent away AND has a sefer keritutah (certificate of divorcement, aka the written witness of her now "ex-" husband).
The difference can be life and death.
This is the ROOT of the general mistranslation and terrible misunderstanding of Yahushua's exposition in Matthew 5:32 (et al). A husband may - but is arguably not required to or even advised to - send a wife away 'for cause', like adultery or suspicion of such. This is not 'abandonment, ' and since she does NOT have a 'get' she is NOT 'divorced' and may not claim to marry another man. (Shaul's midrash in I Cor. 7:10-11 is related, to the extent that a wife who abandons her husband is similarly NOT free to claim 'remarriage'.)
Thus, a woman who is 'put away', may -- or may not -- have a 'get'. To give 'backsliding Israel' one, in SPITE of her continued whoring, is NOT required, and is arguably an act of mercy by Yah, because "He bears her guilt!" (Besides, there is NO ONE like unto YHVH , no other worthy. While Israel could and did continue in whoring/idolatry - just who else could she 'marry' anyway?)
Not at all. Continued whoring, perhaps, but arguably no other 'husband' for Israel...
Ezekiel 23 is arguably even more poignant and graphically apropos.
OUCH! Sorry, but how wrong could that be? What kind of lesson is taught by a broken metaphor? (Do we presume that God Alone can have two wives, but He violates His own "Law" there, too?)
A FAR better understanding of His Word, and the real lessons it is intended to teach is, is to read it in context, en toto, and observe that is the DIFFERENCES between the examples and precedents He cites, and His "statutes, judgments, and commandments" which "change NOT" that really teach us the Big Picture.
YHVH gives us more than two witnesses of His two wives -- two houses -- and His grief at their whoring and idolatry. We are STILL in exile (still 'put away') as a result. There has been, and arguably still will be, chastening aplenty. And in SPITE of all that, He still loves us, and continually proclaims the requirement for t'shuvah: "Return to Me!"
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Hi @Mark C. Just got a chance to see this after a crazy day today. I read through it a couple of times and am really trying to see how the majority of the post is germane to where the thread is at currently. Right now, I am trying to keep it focused on the admittedly very slim percentage of women who are abandoned and how to rightly divide the Scripture on this issue. Is there a difference in their status, and how does that play out in real time, real life, 2017. The passages dealing with putting away an adulterous woman is a separate issue, and has already been discussed and hashed out.
In light of where we are in the thread on the topic of an abandoned woman, in your opinion, does this condition exist today? Did it exist in Biblical history? If it existed, what were the prerequisites to claim this status? And what were the real time, real life prerogatives and rights that this status afforded?
I am also interested if you have any insight or sources into Hebrew culture re: marriage and divorce by either party but especially the wife. This does not necessarily have to have Scriptural basis but if there is a connection, thats great too.
Please keep in mind, I have no interest in the status of a woman put away and/or divorced for cause unless you can tie it to an abandoned woman. We've been there, done that, as best I can tell there's no dispute on that issue, and it's just cluttering the thread at this point.
Yep! Got it! With you on this one.
So, in your opinion, what does this mean real time, real world? With both of these conditions met, does this mean that she has no husband? Is she no longer "bound" to this man? Is she free to marry another?
Also agreed on this one. As the covenant breaker, she should be repenting, begging forgiveness and attempting by all means possible to achieve reconciliation and restoration of her covenant.
In light of where we are in the thread on the topic of an abandoned woman, in your opinion, does this condition exist today? Did it exist in Biblical history? If it existed, what were the prerequisites to claim this status? And what were the real time, real life prerogatives and rights that this status afforded?
I am also interested if you have any insight or sources into Hebrew culture re: marriage and divorce by either party but especially the wife. This does not necessarily have to have Scriptural basis but if there is a connection, thats great too.
Please keep in mind, I have no interest in the status of a woman put away and/or divorced for cause unless you can tie it to an abandoned woman. We've been there, done that, as best I can tell there's no dispute on that issue, and it's just cluttering the thread at this point.
There's no 'opinion' about it. The process in Deuteronomy 24 ("write her a sefer keritutah, give it into her hand, shalach her") is unequivocal, and repeated twice almost word-for-word (v 1, then v 3) in the Hebrew, to the point that there is little significant variation even among the vast majority of English translations. (KJV, NewKJV, RSV, ASV, ESV, The Scripture, even NIV, etc, etc.)
IFF (mathematical shorthand for IF and ONLY IF) those process conditions are met, v 2 answers the rest: "She MAY GO and be another man's [isha]."
It's the other parts that are arguably more ambiguous, including what "uncleanness" ('ervat', nakedness, unseemliness, 'exposure of pudenda') might constitute sufficient cause (thus the classic rabbinic argument of Yahushua's era, "can a man shalach a woman for just any reason?") The cases outlined in Jeremiah 3, Ezekiel 23, etc, seem to give a pretty fair understanding of why YHVH was justified in putting away both Aholah and Aholibah (northern and southern kingdoms, Israel and Judah). Yahushua, in my opinion, does a great job of explaining through multiple Q & A's that Covenant shouldn't be broken at ALL, even if YHVH did provide a process for us stiff-necked hard-hearted oath breakers. (And adultery is the 'exception case', too; if a woman is already an adulteress, a husband who simply puts her away without a get doesn't cause her to commit anything more.)
There is much history on the issue, particularly when it comes to the 'non-virgin' woman who appears to have no husband, and no 'get'. The Hebrew term people may have heard is "aguna".
The 'aguna' problem:
Scripture indicates that only a husband may 'put away' a wife. Obvious "what if" special cases abound, and have been cause for arguments and rulings (Beit Din, shoftim, rabbinic, etc) for centuries. Abuse, abandonment, fraud...what happens to the aguna when she wants out (or to 'remarry') but the husband either can't be found, or is "holding her hostage" for whatever reason. In the latter case, rabbinic authorities have often resorted to some form of coercion. Famously, men who went to war would often give their faithful wives a 'get' IN ADVANCE for the tragic possibility that she might become an aguna if they went (not too uncommon, evidently) Missing In Action, and the body not recovered.
Still, however, the aguna problem makes the point: No Get ==> No 'remarriage'.
Like it or not, Scripture places the burden of proof on the non-virgin woman who would choose to remarry, that she "has no living husband".
I was correcting an error, which needed correction in the context of the thread title. While I agree there SHOULD be no dispute, to conflate "shalach" with 'divorce' is the kind of clutter that does more than muddy the issue. And that is particularly key when it comes to the reason why both 'whoring wives' are still in exile today, for cause, but neither has been abandoned by YHVH.
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So what did they rule when the husband cant be found? If the husband cant be found, how could there ever be a "get"?
Simply put: Spot on my Brother!
Eventually, and sometimes it took a while, "death" was decreed (hence the similarity to a 'Certificate of Death') and the woman was decreed to be a widow; problem solved.
I confess that I may have gotten lost in the sauce here. My question is with the following verse, especially the highlighted bit:
"But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery."
Which leaves me with the thought that if a woman is divorced; either
a) It wasn't a 'legitimate divorce' in which case she still has a husband and marrying her would be adultery
b) It was a 'legitimate divorce' and Jesus' declaration on the matter is that it is still adultery to marry her.
Like I said. I'm lost in this thread. I have almost no idea of what is even going on here. I'm squinting at like every post and my brain meats are throbbing. Am I wrong in my conclusions somehow? Or is this not even what this thread is about?
"But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery."
Which leaves me with the thought that if a woman is divorced; either
a) It wasn't a 'legitimate divorce' in which case she still has a husband and marrying her would be adultery
b) It was a 'legitimate divorce' and Jesus' declaration on the matter is that it is still adultery to marry her.
Like I said. I'm lost in this thread. I have almost no idea of what is even going on here. I'm squinting at like every post and my brain meats are throbbing. Am I wrong in my conclusions somehow? Or is this not even what this thread is about?
Simple answer, Slumberfreeze, is that the KJV/etc there (Matthew 5:32) is a REALLY LOUSY translation. (even a quick look at the greek in an on-line source will highlight at least one obvious error).
The word is NOT "divorced". It is from the Hebrew root "shalach" -- "put away". Put just that correct word back in and it starts to make a LOT more sense.
There is a difference, and Yahushua taught it correctly. As we knew He would.
(I have taught at length on the multiple errors contained just withing the 'culturally-biased' errors in multiple English renderings of that single, horribly-twisted verse.)
PS> The Truth here is "NOT hard." (Deut. 30:11-19)
It has been MADE hard by the Incredible Big Lie that "jesus did away with the law". Had He done so, He would not have been Who He Was, the Messiah and "Torah Made Flesh".
Start with What is Written, in all that He layed out BEFORE He came in the flesh, and then see what He so carefully CLARIFIED.
There is no contradiction.
It's what men say He SHOULD have said, if only He was a smart as they think they are, that is the problem.
It has been MADE hard by the Incredible Big Lie that "jesus did away with the law". Had He done so, He would not have been Who He Was, the Messiah and "Torah Made Flesh".
Start with What is Written, in all that He layed out BEFORE He came in the flesh, and then see what He so carefully CLARIFIED.
There is no contradiction.
It's what men say He SHOULD have said, if only He was a smart as they think they are, that is the problem.
I don't see a contradiction. I don't think Jesus did away with the law. I do think His commands supersede and are stricter than the Law, which is why I have no problem with the law offering avenues that Jesus does not.
I just know I will hate myself for asking this question. I know I will pay for it a dozen times before I am through, but here it is:
What is the difference between divorced and put away? Tell me, because I do not know.
I just know I will hate myself for asking this question. I know I will pay for it a dozen times before I am through, but here it is:
What is the difference between divorced and put away? Tell me, because I do not know.
How do you figure? How do you get from the Greek apolyo to the Hebrew "shalach"? Especially as he is dealing with something associated with a writing of divorcement?
"Divorced" is an English term, arguably resulting from completion of the entire PROCESS outlined not just once, but twice (almost word-for-word) in Deuteronomy 24:1, and then 3.
The verb translated as "send away" or "put away" (shalach) is used perhaps hundreds of times in the Bible (Adam and Eve were "sent away," out of the Garden of Eden, for starters. The term is used not only for 'sending away' a wife, but everything from dispatching a messenger -- or a dozen spies -- to a tree "sending out" a branch.)
To "put away" a wife is but STEP ONE of the process outlined in Deuteronomy 24. The soon-to-be 'former husband' is ALSO to write out a "certificate of divorcement" (sefer keritutah, arguably his WRITTEN WITNESS that she is no longer his wife; in marked contrast to "put way," that term appears only three times in the entire Tanakh, or "Old" Testament... )
after which he gives it to her, and "she MAY GO [after the process is completed] and be another man's (isha).
If a man "puts away" a wife (and this was COMMON in the time of Yahushua, and one aspect of the sin He addressed in Matthew 5:32) without having given her that written witness, she is STILL A WIFE*! Furthermore, he "causeth HER" to commit adultery, ("he bears her guilt" - Numbers 30) and anyone who sleeps with her commits adultery, because "she HAS a living husband".
When we understand His Word, as Written, "line-by-line, precept-by-precept" -- there is no confusion or ambiguity.
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* This is pointedly STILL the case for the whoring 'southern kingdom' of Yehudah/Judah in places like Jeremiah chapter 3, and Ezekiel 23. The 'treacherous sister' is STILL a wife, and has been "put away" -- for CAUSE -- but not given a sefer keritutah!
Quick summary of the point:
All 'divorce' MUST include "putting away".
But NOT all 'putting away' is divorce!
(All horses are 'animals,' but not all animals are horses.)
PS> the BS that claims Yahushua 'outlawed divorce' (as opposed the the Romanized 'church' having done it) is flatulence. Scripture says that a woman who has been put away AND given a 'sefer keritutah' may go and be another man's. Period.
Yahushua, correctly, says the whole thing is NOT A GOOD IDEA!!! (to put it mildly!) It happens anyway.
But let's be realistic! If it wasn't for the "hardness of our hearts" -- the Whole Book could've ended in Genesis chapter 3 with "and they all lived happily ever after " in the Garden.
He DID WHAT HE HAD to DO because of the "hardness of our hearts!" And that hasn't changed!
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It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement:But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
Jesus didn't leave it as a period. He continued with a but.
Also VV76's question is exceedingly pertinent to me. If you don't deflect Apolyon by going full hebrew roots and claim the more pertinent word is Shalach and spend the whole rest of your time in the Law, you end up with the same verses except every instance of Apolyon is here bolded and underlined. And made green!
It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement:But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
So while I agree that it is lame and inconvenient that the translators translated the same word inconsistently, nevertheless Jesus defines Apolyon/Shalach done 'correctly' as requiring a writing of divorcement then goes on to call it adultery nonetheless.
I am not a Hebrew roots guy, but I am on record on this forum with my philosophical approach to OT and NT. My premise to study is that they cannot contradict...ever. If there ever is a contradiction, it is within the hearts and minds of men. "Let God be true , and all of us liars".
I don't have a definitive answer to this particular dilemma, but my approach is to search it out until I find harmony, not perpetuate a contradiction.
We need to be careful what answer we come up with, though (especially the "Jesus made his doctrine stricter than the Law") because anti polygyny supporters generally use this line of reasoning to justify their claims that Jesus superseded the Law and mandated monogamy.
Horrible, disgustingly pitiful translation!
And you're RIGHT! EVEN in the greek, the inconsistency of translating the VERY same word - apolyo - into MULTIPLE English words boggles the mind!
And I submit, again, that the 'burden of proof' is on those who would deny that He was directly referencing the Hebrew text of Deuteronomy 24:1-3, and using terminology ("shalach" - and NOT some other language) that EVERYONE listening would know!
When mistranslations, especially through intermediate languages, become an issue, GO BACK TO THE SOURCE!
I've written and taught on these errors, and this pitiful example of bad translation making for even worse doctrine, at length.
(http://www.markniwot.com -- search for "who gives this woman?", divorce, remarriage, Matthew 5:32, and so on for a literal deluge of information. What will follow next is developed in no small degree of detail.)
But the most productive thing to do here is not to argue the MYRIAD issues with that Most Twisted Verse [which was, in fact, His point! "You have heard it said" -- and indeed we have! We heard it WRONG. A whole buncha Lousy Stuff! - but He intended to straighten it out! By teaching what Is Written! ("not as the scribes and pharisees, but as One having Authority!" - end of The Speech, and the end of Matthew chapter 7)].
Remember, He was addressing not only Scripture, but REAL, continuing issues.
Here's what it says, consistently, and in modern colloquial English:
"It has been said that, "whoever would be inclined to shalach his wife ought to give her a sefer keritutah." But I tell you that anyone who ONLY puts her away -- unless, obviously, she's already an adulteress -- actually MAKES her commit adultery! [against you, you scumbag! And you ought to know that means YOU bear HER guilt for YOUR actions!]
And anyone who 'marries' such a woman, who is ONLY 'put away' but does NOT have the written witness, and thus really STILL HAS a husband, is committing adultery himself!"
Please compare to what is Written, and note that there is NO inconsistency here whatsoever! And furthermore, since Yahushua Himself JUST FINISHED (only a dozen verses earlier!) saying He would NOT change the Torah anyway, it has the benefit of NOT making Him out to be a liar, as well.
Any questions?
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