Friday, May 9, 2025

Deuteronomy 23:15-16's Relevance To Divorce

In the very first chapter of the Bible after the giving of the Ten Commandments, divorce is touched upon twice, once directly (Exodus 21:10-11) and once indirectly (Exodus 21:26-27).  The Bible does teach that people are free to leave abusive marriages.  It is not just sexual immorality like adultery on the part of one's spouse that legitimizes divorce!  Beyond just the abused party (one or both spouses as is applicable) having the human right to go free for the sake of justice, there is another part of Mosaic Law relevant to divorce for abuse--and any sort of mistreatment is abuse.  First, I will present Exodus 21:10-11 and 26-27 again to show that the Bible supports divorce for both passive neglect and active abuse.  The latter follows from the former as it is.  

Now, Exodus 21:10-11 does not say that husbands lack the described moral rights of wives, which would be sexist and thus logically inconsistent--there is no anatomical or physiological difference among men and women related to neglect and divorce, so any moral obligations concerning them would have to be identical if they exist.  Genesis 1:26-27 and 1 Corinthians 7:2-5, though, absolutely clarify left to themselves that the rights and obligations mentioned in Exodus 21:10-11 apply if the genders are reversed as well.  Exodus 21:26-27 specifically references both male and female slaves, and if slaves have a right to freedom for mistreatment, free spouses do.  Also, I have included Deuteronomy 15:16-17 to highlight that the Bible very overtly tackles how promises of commitment and servitude for life do not override the human right to escape abuse.


Exodus 21:10-11--"'If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing, and marital rights.  If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.'"

Exodus 21:26-27--"'An owner who hits a male or female slave in the eye and destroys it must let the slave go free to compensate for the eye.  And an owner who knocks out the tooth of a male or female slave must let the slave go free to compensate for the tooth.'"

Deuteronomy 15:16-17--"But if your servant says to you, 'I do not want to leave you,' because he loves you and your family and is well off with you, then take an awl and push it through his earlobe into the door, and he will become your servant for life.  Do the same for your female servant."


Rather close to a passage that addresses divorce by name without condemning the practice as long as the divorced spouse has actually committed some moral wrong (Deuteronomy 24:1-4), there is a set of verses about not returning a runaway slave to their master.  Exodus 21:26-27 is about how slaves deserve to go free for abuse, yet has logical ramifications for divorce on its own and together with Deuteronomy 15:16-17 (a declaration of lifelong commitment is very explicitly similar to many marriage vows).  Deuteronomy 23:15-16 is similar, albeit more subtle in its logically necessary relevance to divorce.


Deuteronomy 23:15-16--"If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand them over to their master.  Let them live among you wherever they like and in whatever town they choose.  Do not oppress them."


Deuteronomy 23:15-16 does not command slaves to flee abuse, but it certainly allows for this by condemning a third party returning a slave to his or her master.  Nothing is clarified about what exactly was done to the slave beforehand to compel them to depart.  Nonetheless, they are to settle wherever they would like and not be oppressed.  Exodus 21:26-27, in contrast, gives specific examples of abuse and says the slave "must" go free.  The passage also emphasizes gender equality, the male and female slaves being analogous to husbands and wives, and prescribes this freedom even if the slave had promised to serve his or her master/mistress for the rest of their life as according to Exodus 21:5-6 and Deuteronomy 15:16-17.  Together, these passages teach that slaves and by equivalence anyone abused must be released from an oppressive relationship/circumstance despite promises made beforehand and that they can simply walk away if they are not willingly allowed to leave, having the right to not be forcibly returned.

Out of love, perhaps the same love that drove them to willingly declare themself a male or female servant for life, or out of mercy, a slave could permissibly decide to stay with a master after mistreatment.  Maybe their master or mistress has otherwise been righteous and has even gone above and beyond what morality requires in their kindness.  It is still their choice to stay if they truly wish.  Justice on the part of the master is liberating them, and injustice on the part of any third party is making them go back to an abusive person or situation.  Yes, for the sake of love or mercy, a spouse could stay with their partner who has wronged them, but this is supererogatory at best, and he or she is certainly free according to God's laws in the Torah to marry a new partner in the case of any justified divorce.

I emphasize again, a man or woman fleeing an abusive marriage--including an emotionally/psychologically abusive marriage--is never to be pressured to return.  Reason and Biblical morality contradict this.  Submitting to an evil person cannot be obligatory if good and evil exist, even if the person is otherwise righteous as aforementioned; in more than one way, focusing on the lowest in the social hierarchy in ways that would have to apply to everyone else, the Bible makes it clear that male and female slaves do not have to submit to abuse.  Deuteronomy 23:15-16 does not restrict the scope of its commands to cases of physical abuse as opposed to verbal and psychological mistreatment, and thus neither would its ramifications for divorce be limited to specific forms of abuse.

There is no wiggle room with what the Bible really teaches about divorce even less directly outside of statements in the synoptic gospels that are, short of a hypothetical linguistic phenomenon described here [1], sheer exaggeration or woefully wrong according to God's own laws.  If Deuteronomy 24:1-4 did not specify that divorce requires a moral failing on the spouse's part, the universal and perfect law of God (Leviticus 20:22-24, Deuteronomy 4:5-8, Psalm 19:7, etc.) would actually teach in Deuteronomy 21:10-14 that divorce literally due to amoral personal disinterest or displeasure is nonsinful!  What verses like Exodus 21:10-11 and 21:26-27 teach explicitly or by logical extension about divorce is not about frivolous grounds.  Deuteronomy 23:15-16 would by extension also pertain to marriage, more directly about not sending someone back into an abusive relationship than about fleeing the relationship.  That a slave can simply walk away, almost whatever the reason (Exodus 22:3 would be an exception for the sake of justice), and that a spouse should not divorce for amoral reasons (Deuteronomy 24:1) is the only significant difference in applicability.


[1].  Since there is no inherent meaning to words themselves, their meaning is ultimately whatever the speaker means by them.  I cannot know with absolute certainty what other people mean by their words, unlike with my own.  Unless Jesus is using words in such a manner, very differently from their conventional usage, in passages like Matthew 5:31-32, Matthew 19:1-9, and Mark 10:1-12, he is either using extreme hyperbole to reinforce the seriousness of divorce or he is insane (irrational) and a heretic.

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