What is the teaching of Deuteronomy 24:1-4; Jeremiah 3:1; Hosea 11 and Ezekiel 23?
Note the parallel teachings recorded in Deuteronomy and Jeremiah.
“When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, when she has departed from his house, and goes and becomes another man’s wife, if the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her as his wife, then her former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance” (Deuteronomy 24:1-4 NKJV)
“They say, ‘If a man divorces his wife, And she goes from him And becomes another man’s, May he return to her again?’ Would not that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the harlot with many lovers; Yet return to Me,” says the Lord (Jeremiah 3:1 NKJV).
Old Testament instruction found in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 and Jeremiah 3:1 prohibited Israelites from marrying a second time to a spouse after which he had divorced her she had married to another man. Jeremiah 3:1 makes a subtle distinction between a second biblically permissible marriage (under Judaism) and adultery. Comparing His people to adulterers, God expressed His willingness to take the children of Israel back. Hosea 11 and Ezekiel 23 compare the idolatry of the Israelites to spiritual adultery.
The Old Testament restriction about remarrying a divorced spouse who afterward had married another person has not been reinstituted in the New Testament. The Old Testament references to the same do not have a direct application today since the Old Testament has been replaced with the New Testament (Romans 7:6-7; Ephesians 2:15; Colossians 2:14). We, today, live under Christianity and are amenable to the New Testament (2 Corinthians 3:6; Hebrews 9:15). Even under the Old Testament, Scripture says nothing by way of prohibition about a man who divorces his wife marrying her again if she has not married another man.
The array of passages in the inquiry do not have a bearing on New Testament teaching about marriage, divorce and remarriage. All we have that is obligatory or permissible regarding marriage, divorce and remarriage in the Christian Age is found exclusively in the New Testament. The only possible principle from those passages that we could apply correctly to the New Testament is the generality that God desires all men to repent rather than perish. Hence, His longsuffering with mankind lingers (2 Peter 3:9).
