Deuteronomy 24:1 - Dummelow's Commentary on the Bible

Some uncleanness] RV 'some unseemly thing.' The Heb. is literally 'nakedness of a thing,' an expression also used in Deuteronomy 23:14. The vagueness of the language gave rise to endless disputes among Jewish teachers. In the time of our Lord, opinion was divided between the school of Shammai who held that it meant unchastity, and the school of Hillel who understood the expression in a much wider sense as referring to almost any cause of displeasure on the part of the husband, such as an ill-cooked meal or the sight of a more beautiful woman. The Pharisees asked the judgment of our Lord upon the matter and He decreed in favour of the stricter interpretation. He acknowledged no ground for divorce except that of adultery, and even this is a doubtful exception (neither Mark nor Luke gives the qualifying words 'except for fornication'; see Mark 10:11). He characterised the Mosaic law of divorce as a concession to the 'hardness' of men's hearts, and went back to the original ordinance of God in creating one man and one woman as evidence of the divine idea of the inviolability of the marriage bond: see Mark 10:2-12; Matthew 19:3-9; Matthew 5:31-32; Luke 16:18. The bill of divorcement contained the sentence, 'And thou art permitted (to be married) to another man.'