When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give [it] in her hand, and send her out of his house.
Ver. 1. Because he hath found some uncleanness.] He is displeased with some defect which he hath found either in her body or behaviour: as our Henry VIII pretended at least to do in his Anne of Cleve, sister to William, duke of Cleve, whose other sister Frederick, duke of Saxony, Luther's patron and protector, had espoused. This lady being sent into England, against Frederick's liking, and married to King Henry, seemed nothing pleasing in his eye, and was therefore (sed quo iure?) soon after divorced. This Stephen Gardiner thought a fit subject for him to work upon against the Lord Cromwell, who had made the match, and now opposed the divorce, and was therefore put to death, which he suffered right Christianly and cheerfully. a
Let him write her a bill of divorcement.] Heb., He shall write her a bill of divorcement. God permitteth, he commandeth not the Jews thus to do, as they mistook the matter, Mat 19:7 and were better informed by our Saviour. Mat 19:8 See Trapp on " Mat 19:8 "
a Speed's Hist, fol. 1042.