What does the Bible say about divorce?
Short answer
The Bible treats divorce as the tearing of something God joined, and it foresees situations in which it happens. Jesus points to one exception in Matthew 19; Paul foresees another in 1 Corinthians 7, when the spouse who does not believe departs. Churches differ about remarriage, not about the worth of someone who has been divorced.
- Written by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 7 min read
Whoever searches for this question is rarely studying theology. Most of the time it is someone in the middle of a process, or thinking of starting one, trying to find out whether they are about to do something irreparable before God. Worth saying up front: the passages below were written to guide communities, not to condemn readers. What this page does is put them on the table with the context that tends to get cut when a verse is quoted alone in a difficult conversation.
In the Old Testament, the law does not institute divorce: it regulates a practice that already existed. Deuteronomy 24 requires a written document and its delivery to the woman — in a society where a dismissed wife was left with no proof of her situation, that is protection, not permission. In Malachi, the harshest words on the subject in the whole Bible appear, and the context deserves attention: the prophet is speaking of men who were abandoning the wives of their youth. The target of the text is the abandonment, not the person abandoned.
In Matthew 19, the question that reaches Jesus is quite specific. The Pharisees do not ask whether divorce is permitted — everyone there knew it was — but whether it holds for any reason at all. Two rabbinic camps were in dispute, one quite permissive and the other restrictive, and the aim was to place Jesus in one of them. His answer retreats to Genesis, to the union that precedes any law, and treats the permission of Moses as a concession to hardness of heart. Then comes the clause that became the centre of centuries of discussion: separating and marrying again is described as adultery, with an exception where there has been sexual infidelity.
That clause is in Matthew and is not in Mark or Luke, where the same scene appears with no exception at all. This is not a detail: much of the Christian divergence about remarriage is born exactly there. Those who read Mark as the older and starker formulation understand Matthew’s exception as a later pastoral adaptation; those who read Matthew as the complete record understand that Mark is merely summarising. Neither reading needs to accuse the other of bad faith, and neither is obviously the right one.
Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7, does something almost no ancient text does: he marks where he is repeating the Lord and where he is speaking on his own. The general instruction is not to separate, and, if separation happens, to remain unmarried or be reconciled. Shortly after, dealing with marriages where only one partner believes, he foresees another situation — if the one who does not believe decides to leave, the spouse who stays is not bound. Whether that "not bound" means freedom to marry again is precisely where the traditions part.
There is also what these texts do not say, and it needs saying clearly. None of these passages orders anyone to remain in a household where there is violence. Both Catholic and Protestant pastoral practice recognise separation as necessary where someone’s safety is at risk, and canon law provides for the separation of spouses for grave cause without treating it as a sin on the part of the one protecting themselves. Nobody needs to settle a doctrinal question before seeking safety.
On what comes afterwards, the traditions take different roads, and it is worth knowing your own community’s before deciding anything. One thing, though, is common to all of them: none teaches that a divorced person is beyond the reach of God, barred from praying, from taking part in the life of the church, or from starting again. Divorce is treated as a wound, and a wound is the kind of thing Christian faith has always known how to accompany.
What the passages say
1“If a man takes a wife, and he has her, and she does not find favor before his eyes because of some vileness, then he shall write a bill of divorce, and he shall give it to her hand, and he shall dismiss her from his house.
2And when, having departed, she has married another,
3and if he likewise hates her, and has given her a bill of divorce, and has dismissed her from his house, or if indeed he has died,
4then the former husband cannot take her back as a wife. For she has been polluted and has become abominable in the sight of the Lord. Otherwise, you may cause your land, which the Lord your God will deliver to you as a possession, to sin.
The law does not create divorce: it disciplines what was already being done. The requirement of a document handed over in person protected the dismissed woman, who without it was left with no evidence of her marital status. Reading this as divine authorisation of divorce inverts the function of the text.
15Did not One make her, and is she not the remainder of his spirit? And what does one seek, except offspring of God? So then, preserve your spirit, and do not despise the wife of your youth.
16If you would hold hatred, dismiss her, says the Lord, the God of Israel. But iniquity will cover his garment, says the Lord of hosts. Preserve your spirit, and do not be willing to despise.
The severest passage in the Bible on this subject, and the most misused. Read both verses together in this edition: each one closes with the same pair of commands — guard your own spirit, and refuse to hold a lifelong wife in contempt. Verse 16 is also one of the most textually disputed lines in the whole Bible, and English editions word it very differently; the one published here follows the Latin. What is stable across all of them is the target: the text accuses the one who abandons. Using it against the one who was left is reading it backwards.
4And he said to them in response, “Have you not read that he who made man from the beginning, made them male and female?” And he said:
5“For this reason, a man shall separate from father and mother, and he shall cling to his wife, and these two shall become one flesh.
6And so, now they are not two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate.”
Jesus answers a question about law by retreating to before the law, all the way to creation. The argument is not juridical: he describes marriage as a union made by God, which moves the discussion from "what is permitted" to "what was intended from the beginning".
8He said to them: “Although Moses permitted you to separate from your wives, due to the hardness of your heart, it was not that way from the beginning.
9And I say to you, that whoever will have separated from his wife, except because of fornication, and who will have married another, commits adultery, and whoever will have married her who has been separated, commits adultery.”
Two moves in one passage. First, the Mosaic permission is explained as a concession to hardness of heart, and not as the original plan. Then comes the exception clause that Mark and Luke do not record — the historical origin of much of the Christian divergence about remarriage.
11And he said to them: “Whoever dismisses his wife, and marries another, commits adultery against her.
12And if a wife dismisses her husband, and is married to another, she commits adultery.”
The same scene, with no exception at all, and with a difference notable for the ancient world: here the rule is stated in both directions, applying equally to the man and to the woman. Those who hold to indissolubility find their most direct support in this formulation.
10But to those who have been joined in matrimony, it is not I who commands you, but the Lord: a wife is not to separate from her husband.
11But if she has separated from him, she must remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband should not divorce his wife.
Paul distinguishes what comes from the Lord from what he adds himself, and here he is in the first case. The instruction is not to separate; the striking part is that he already foresees that separation may occur, and says what to do in that case instead of pretending it does not happen.
15But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart. For a brother or sister cannot be made subject to servitude in this way. For God has called us to peace.
The second situation foreseen: the spouse who does not believe decides to leave. Paul says the one who stays is not held in servitude, and closes the passage speaking of peace. Whether that freedom includes a new marriage is exactly where Catholics, Protestants and the Orthodox read differently.
19The Lord is near to those who are troubled in heart, and he will save the humble in spirit.
Not a text about divorce, and it is here on purpose. The question that brings someone to this page usually arrives alongside a broken heart, and Scripture describes that state not as distance from God but as the exact place where he draws near. (This is the psalm numbered 34 in most Bibles.)