Mat 19:3-12 | Geneva | STEP | {1} The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to {b} put away his wife for every cause? (1) The band of marriage ought not to be broken, unless it is because of fornication. (b) To send her a bill of divorce; see .

Matthew 19:3-12

{1} The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to {b} put away his wife for every cause?

(1) The band of marriage ought not to be broken, unless it is because of fornication. (b) To send her a bill of divorce; see Mt 1:19. And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall {c} cleave to his wife: and they {d} twain shall be one flesh?

(c) The Greek word conveys "to be glued unto", by which it signifies the union by marriage, which is between man and wife, as though they were glued together. (d) They who were two become one as it were: and this word "flesh" is figuratively taken for the whole man, or the body, after the manner of the Hebrews. Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath {e} joined together, let not man put asunder.

(e) Has made them yokefellows, as the marriage itself is called a yoke, by a borrowed kind of speech. {2} They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?

(2) Because political laws are adjusted to allow some things, it does not follow that God therefore approves of them. He saith unto them, Moses {f} because of the hardness of your hearts {g} suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.

(f) Being brought about because of the hardness of your hearts. (g) By a political law, not by the moral law: for the moral law is a perpetual law of God's justice; the other bows and bends as the carpenter's bevel. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except [it be] {h} for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

(h) Therefore in these days the laws that were made against adulterers were not regarded: for they would have no need of divorce, if the marriage had been severed by punishment of death. His disciples say unto him, If the {i} case of the man be so with [his] wife, it is not good to marry.

(i) If the matter stands in this way between man and wife, or in marriage. {3} But he said unto them, All [men] cannot {k} receive this saying, save [they] to whom it is given.

(3) The gift of celibacy is peculiar, and therefore no man can set a law to himself of perpetual celibacy. (k) Receive and admit, as by translation we say, that a straight and narrow place is not able to receive many things. For there are some {l} eunuchs, which were so born from [their] mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have {m} made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive [it], let him receive [it].

(l) A man can become a eunuch in one of two ways: the first is by castration or emasculation, and the other by natural causes, such as a rupture. (m) Who abstain from marriage, and live as celibates through the gift of God.