Deuteronomy 24:1 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

DEUTERONOMY CHAPTER 24 Of the woman that was dismissed by her husband with a bill of divorcement, Deuteronomy 24:1-4. The liberty of the new-married man, Deuteronomy 24:5. Pawns and pledges, Deuteronomy 24:6. Man-stealers, Deuteronomy 24:7. Leprosy, Deuteronomy 24:8. And again of pawns or pledges, Deuteronomy 24:10-13. Of day wages, Deuteronomy 24:14,15. Prone to be punished for another's offence, Deuteronomy 24:16. Of justice and love towards widows, fatherless, and strangers, Deuteronomy 24:17-22. That she find no favour in his eyes, i.e. he dislike and loathe her. It is a figure called meiosis, whereby more is understood than is expressed, as Proverbs 10:2, Proverbs 17:21 24:23. Uncleanness; Heb. nakedness, or shamefulness, or filthiness of a thing, i.e. some filthy or hateful thing, some loathsome distemper of body or quality of mind, not observed before marriage; or some light and unchaste carriage, as this or the like phrase commonly signifies, but not amounting to adultery, which was not punished with divorce, but with death. Send her out of his house; which is not a command to divorce them, as some of the Jews understood it, nor an allowance and approbation, as plainly appears, not only from the New Testament, Matthew 5:31,32 Matthew 19:8,9, but also from the Old Testament, Genesis 2:24 Zechariah 2:16; but merely a permission or toleration of that practice for prevention of greater mischiefs and cruelties of that hard-hearted people towards their wives, and this only for a season, even until the time of reformation, as it is called Hebrews 9:10, i.e. till the coming of the Messias, when things were to return to their first institution and purest condition. The husband is not here commanded to put her away, but if he do put her away, he is commanded to write and give her a bill of divorcement, before he send her out of his house. And though it be true, as our Saviour observes, that Moses did suffer these divorces, to wit, without punishing them, which also is here implied, yet it must be acknowledged, that if we consult the Hebrew words, those three first verses may seem to be only a supposition, and the words rendered, then let him write her, in the Hebrew run thus, and hath written her, and so it follows, Deuteronomy 24:2. And she be departed out of his house, and be gone and become another man's wife; then follows Deuteronomy 24:3, which even according to our translation carries on the supposition, And if the latter husband hate her, & c. Then follows the position or prohibition, Deuteronomy 24:4.