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And it came to pass, that when Jesus had finished these sayings, he departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of Judaea beyond Jordan;

And came into the coasts of Judea — Upon the news of Lazarus his friend’s sickness, John 11:8 , with the hazard of his life, he came far on foot to the help of his friend. Much water cannot quench love. And this was our Saviour’s last journey toward Jerusalem, to the which he steeled his face with fortitude, and was even straitened, or pained, till it were accomplished. το προσωπον αυτου εστηριξε , Luke 9:51 ; Luke 12:50 , συνεχομαι . So was that martyr, who (because he seemed at his lodging to be somewhat troubled, and was therefore asked by one how he did?) answered, In very deed I am in prison till I be in prison.

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And great multitudes followed him; and he healed them there.

And great multitudes followed him — Though he were then to die. For all that follows from this Matthew 19:1-30 ; Matthew 20:1-34 ; Matthew 21:1-46 ; Matthew 22:1-46 ; Matthew 23:1-39 ; Matthew 24:1-51 , seems to be a relation, of the acts of the last three months of his life. Follow God, was a moral precept of the heathen sages, τοις θεοις επου , who therein placed the safety and happiness of a man. Magnus est animas qui se Deo tradidit, Great is the spirit that surrenders himself to God, saith Seneca. He is a brave man that follows God through thick and thin, through whatsoever hardship.

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The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?

Is it lawful for a man, … — A captious question, purposely to put him to shame or peril before the people. For if he liked divorce, the better sort would be offended and displeased; if he disliked it, the common sort (those that followed him), for denying them that liberty that Moses had allowed them. One thing that created Jeremiah so much trouble among the people of his time, was, that he persuaded them to the yielding up of the city to the Chaldeans, which Isaiah had so earnestly dissuaded them, not long before, in the days of King Hezekiah.

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And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,

And he answered and said unto them — Our Saviour would not divide the inheritance, when required to it, Luke 12:13 , but he would decide controversies touching divorces; for in marriage matters many cases of conscience fall out fit to be determined by the minister, whose lips should both preserve and present knowledge to the people, whose house for this cause should be always open, as the Aediles’ house in Rome was to all comers.

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And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?

And said, For this cause, … — Dixit, duxit, benedixit He ordered, he commaned, he blessed these three things are said by Moses to have been done by God in the institution, and for the honour of marriage; to the which still (saith Bifield on 1 Peter 3:2 ) God beareth so great respect, as that he is pleased to bear with, cover, and not impute the many frailties, follies, vanities, weaknesses, and wickednesses that are found between man and wife.

For this cause shall a man leave father — viz., In regard of cohabitation, not of sustentation; Relinquet cubile patris et matris, as the Chaldee rightly interprets it, Genesis 2:24 . And this was the first prophecy that was ever uttered in the world (saith Tertullian and Beda), venerable therefore for its antiquity; like as is also that first hexameter, made by Phemonoe, in the year of the world 2580 (1424 BC).

Συμφερετε πτερατ οιωνοι κηρον τε μελισσαι .

And shall cleave to his wife — Gr. Be glued to her, προσκολληθησεται . A table will often cleave in the whole wood, before it will part asunder where it is glued. A husband ought to be as firm to his wife as to himself. See Trapp on " Genesis 2:24 "

And they twain shall be one flesh — This is point blank against polygamy, which yet Anabaptists would bring in again, and Turks allow of. They learned it of Lamech, qui primus unam costam in duas divisit, who was the first polygamist, saith Jerome, but had soon enough of it. So had Jacob, Elkanah, and other holy men of old, who lived and died in this sin of polygamy, and merely through mistake, as it is thought, of that text, Leviticus 18:16 ; "Thou shalt not take a wife to her sister, to vex her," i.e. Thou shalt not superinduce one wife to another. Now the Fathers took the word (sister) for one so by blood, which was spoken of a sister by nation, as those clauses (to vex her) and (during her life) do evince.

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Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

They are no more twain — A man’s wife is himself, εαυτον , Ephesians 5:28 ; (as is likewise a man’s country, Luke 4:23 , to cure his country is to cure himself), and they twain, saith our Saviour in the former verse, shall be εις σαρκα μιαν , into one flesh. The man misseth his rib, and the woman would be in her old place again, under the man’s arm or wing; hence no rest till they be re-united and concorporated. "My daughter," said Naomi to Ruth, "should I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee?" Ruth 3:1 . Why, then, should there be divorces for light matters? why should there be beating of wives, and laying upon them (as some) with their unmanly fists? Did ever any man "hate his own flesh," Ephesians 5:29 , or but hide his eyes from it? Isaiah 58:7 , how much less tear it with his teeth, and pull it away piecemeal, unless it were mad demoniacs and rash divorcers? Christ, the best husband, hates putting away, Malachi 2:16 ; yea, though never so much provoked to it,Jeremiah 3:1; Jeremiah 3:1 ; Job 13:1 , he will not do it.

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They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?

Why did Moses then command, … — Sophister-like they oppose Moses to God, scripture to scripture, as if God were against himself. This is still the guise of graceless heretics; as also to mingle and jumble together truths with falsehoods, that falsehoods may pass the more current. See it in these Pharisees. It was true that Moses commanded (for the honour of the woman, and disgrace of the man) that he should give her an abscessionale, A permission or command to depart. ŒD a bill of divorcement. But it was not true that Moses commanded to put her away. He permitted such a thing indeed as a civil magistrate by divine dispensation (better an inconvenience than a mischief), but that makes little for its lawfulness.

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He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.

Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts — Ob duricordiam vestram, saith Tertullian. For the relief of the wife, questionless, was this permitted by Moses, not as a prophet, but as a lawgiver; so he suffered them to exercise usury upon strangers. And, at this day, they are, by the states where they live, permitted to strain up their usury to eighteen in the hundred (18%) upon the Christians. And so they are used, as the friars, to suck from the meanest, and to be sucked by the greatest. But what saith our statute? Forasmuch as all usury, being forbidden by the law of God, is a sin and detestable, … And what saith our homily book? Verily so many as increase themselves by usury-they have their goods of the devil’s gift, … And what saith blind nature? Aristotle in one page condemneth both τοκιστην and κυβευτην , the usurer and the gambler. And Agis, the Athenian general, set fire upon all the usurer’s books and bonds in the marketplace than which fire Agesilaus was wont to say, he never saw a fairer. But to return to the text: Moses noteth the hatred of a man’s wife to be the cause of much mischief,Deuteronomy 22:13-14; Deuteronomy 22:13-14 . Hence a divorce was allowed in that case, Deuteronomy 24:3 , lest the husband’s hatred should work the wife’s ruth or ruin, in case he should be compelled to keep her. He might put her away, therefore, but not without a double blur to himself. 1. By his writing of divorce, he should give testimony to her honesty, and that she was put away merely for his hard-heartedness toward her. 2. If she were again put away by a second husband, the first might not take her to wife again, as having once for ever judged himself unworthy of her further fellowship. Husbands should be gentle to their wives, because of their weakness: glasses are not hardly handled; a small knock soon breaks them. But there are a number of Nabals, a brood of Chaldeans, a bitter and furious nation, that have little growing in their furrows but wormwood; they have a true gall of bitterness in them, Colossians 3:20 , whereas the very heathens, at their weddings, pulled the gall out of all their good cheer, and cast it away; teaching thereby the married couples what to do ( την χολην εξελοντες, ερριψαν . Plut.). And God Almighty professeth that he hates putting away; threatening also to cut off such unkind husbands as by their harshness caused their wives, when they should have been cheerful in God’s services, to cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and with crying out, so that he regarded not the offering any more, Malachi 2:13 . Picus est imago ingrati mariti, the saith Melancthon. The piannet (magpie) is an emblem of an unkind husband, for in autumn he casts off his mate, lest he should be forced to keep her in winter: afterwards, in the spring, he allures her to him again, and makes much of her. The Athenians were wont to put away their wives upon discontent, or hope of greater portions. Solon, their lawgiver (who permitted it), being asked whether he had given the best laws to the Athenians? answered, The best that they could handle.

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