“God hates divorce” is a mistranslation — Malachi 2:16 Digest

13 thoughts on ““God hates divorce” is a mistranslation — Malachi 2:16 Digest”

1. Hi Barbara,
   It reminds me of a bit of a conundrum, where a treacherous husband is considered both wrong and “right”, or wrong whatever he does. If he divorces without grounds (treacherous), or puts away a wife he hates (rightly as the verse commands since he continues in his hating?), or divorces without grounds (treacherous) or keeps a wife he hates though he behaves treacherously toward her (treacherous). He’s basically treacherous any which way, yet he appears to be doing the “least” treacherous thing by putting her away (though a wife who doesn’t want to be divorced feels poorly treated). It’s still treacherous to be doing anything less than honouring, caring, loving and being faithful to her in the first place, of course.

   So instead of three wrongs and a “right”, I guess it’s three badly wrongs, and a less wrong (unless the wife doesn’t want a divorce at the time, and she’s given him no grounds)….

   How do you get your head around it?
   Sharon

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   1. Hi Sharon. I think your comment repeated itself in one place. You said “If he divorces without grounds (treacherous)” twice. So in order to clarify, I’m going to restate what you said.

      Scenario 1. He divorces without grounds. (treacherous divorce)

      Scenario 2. He keeps a wife he hates. (treachery IN the marriage if he is an abuser)

      Scenario 3. He puts away a wife he hates. (less wrong than scenarios 1 and 2; but still treachery because, as you said, “It’s still treacherous to be doing anything less than honouring, caring, loving and being faithful to her in the first place.”)

      Scenario 2 can have other variations, not all of which are treacherous. For example, a man may keep a wife he cannot respect, a wife he may even feel hatred for at times, but he does not abuse or persecute her. Think of Mr Bennett in Pride and Prejudice. He had chosen his wife unwisely — he was a man of intellect and culture, she was a frivolous, self-centred, histrionic woman. He chose to remain married to her because a) it was almost impossible and certainly scandalous to obtain divorce in those days, b) he did not want to shame her by casting her out, c) he knew he’d made a bad choice to marry her, but he (mostly) took responsibility by living with the unpleasant consequences of his bad choice. There was no real treachery in that marriage, only ill-matched people living out the consequences of their youthful poor choices.

      It’s true that a wife who doesn’t want to be divorced often feels poorly treated. But it behoves to be curious about why she doesn’t want to be divorced.

      A wicked, profligate, abusive wife might not want to be divorced; but because of her evil pattern of conduct, her husband has biblical grounds to divorce her. Therefore, what she “wants” is not fair; she has forfeited the right to remain married.

      On the other hand, a wife might have been suffering abuse from her husband for years but be still in the fog and therefore not identify it as abuse. Such a woman may want to remain married because she fears being homeless and poor, or she fears the family court will order her to hand the kids over to the abuser, or she fears the social stigma of being a divorced woman; or she fears that God will shun her if she becomes a divorced woman. If her abusive husband decides to divorce her, she may (rightly) feel that he has treated her poorly.

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2. Hi Barb,

   Thank you for your reply.

   I have attempted already to post a comment the same way as my initial comment, but had to reset my WordPress password etc. and now cannot see the comment awaiting moderation. This is the short version if the other one doesn’t turn up, with an extra observation regarding Exodus 21:11.

   The essential difference between the two instances of divorcing without grounds is that one is without regard to Malachi’s instructions and one is with regard to Malachi’s instructions.

   The wife in either instance is mistreated initially, and may understandably feel mistreated by being put away, until perhaps the wife comes out of a fog of confusion, or unless the kind of hating she has endured is the kind the wife would definitely want relief from, since the wife’s wishes are not referenced in Malachi 2:16.

   The absence of a reference to the wife’s wishes in Malachi 2:16, differs perhaps from Exodus 21:11 where the slave wife’s wishes to be free are perhaps assumed, by the fact the husband’s negligence would have become apparent by her testimony, more than likely.

   Perhaps we can assume that the hating referenced in Malachi 2:16 differs significantly from the tolerant affection and faithfulness of Mr Bennett toward his essentially immature wife in “Pride and Prejudice”.

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3. I think the summary to my original conundrum is that perhaps I should be reading it in terms such that a treacherous husband should give a wife the divorce she needs to be free of him if he has persisted in his hatred to such a point as it is necessary.

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   1. Hi Sharon,

      My apologies for being so long in saying I’m so glad to see you again….I’ve been reading the conversation between you and Barb with great interest. 😊

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4. Hi Finding Answers,
   I do spend more time in Facebook land these days. 🙂 I have been reminded how finding the words to form a question quite often helps the process of nutting it out – even if more additional questions arise than answers!

   I think it helps to remember the essence of the verse at the end of the day – we are to be faithful. If the LORD God of Israel says we should be faithful, no human being has the right to minimise the importance of it when a spouse is betrayed and mistreated, and does so with no real fear of God.

   God’s grace and peace to you. 🕊

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   1. Quite a few of my blog readers do not use Facebook at all. So if you want to bless them it would be great if you would comment here at the blog. I’ve probably said this to you before, Sharon, so forgive me if I’m repeating myself.

      I know you sometimes have trouble with commenting at WordPress. If you want help in trying to iron that out, please feel free to email my assistant Reaching Out. reachingout.acfj@gmail.com

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      1. Barb,

         You wrote (28th July 2023):

         Quite a few of my blog readers do not use Facebook at all.

         And I’m one of those who doesn’t use Facebook. 😊

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   2. Sharon,

      You wrote (28th July 2023):

      finding the words to form a question quite often helps the process of nutting it out — even if more additional questions arise than answers!

      That. 😊

      You wrote:

      God’s grace and peace to you.

      And to you. 😊

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5. Thank you, Finding Answers.

   This time my comment has turned up though I didn’t see anything about it awaiting moderation.

   The thing with my time now is that I am nurturing a baby Facebook page. A couple of years after I closed my WordPress blog I wanted to find a platform that was free for me to use and I started writing on Medium. By 12 months later I was more mindful that with non-members being able to read only 3 stories a month meant that anything I wrote was quite inaccessible to anyone who didn’t have a spare US$5 a month — which is a lot to victims-survivors of abuse.

   Because a lot of the advocates posts that I react / share / comment on are on Facebook not MeWe or somewhere else, I decided to go with what’s most familiar to me, and free at both ends of the process, writing or reading. I still use Medium for formatting and publishing, and then share the “friend” link for the Medium story on Facebook.

   Wherever we each may be, and whatever step we take next, let’s shout the truth aloud, and not hold back, whether to an audience of many, a whisper to one, or a prayer.

   “Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
   Raise your voice like a trumpet.
   Declare to my people their rebellion….” (Isaiah 58:1 [NIV])

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   1. Sharon,

      My apologies for my delay in replying to you. There were some short — but planned — local-to-my-building planned power outages and I didn’t want to risk having to re-write my comment. 😊

      You wrote (30th July 2023):

      By 12 months later I was more mindful that with non-members being able to read only 3 stories a month meant that anything I wrote was quite inaccessible to anyone who didn’t have a spare US$5 a month — which is a lot to victims-survivors of abuse.

      That’s so thoughtful of you, Sharon, thinking of those victims / survivors who might not have the finances to read much of what you write if you’d stayed writing only on Medium.

      You wrote:

      Wherever we each may be, and whatever step we take next, let’s shout the truth aloud, and not hold back, whether to an audience of many, a whisper to one, or a prayer.

      That. And I agree:

      Cry aloud [if you can], spare not [if you can], lift up thy voice like a trumpet [if you can], and shew my people their transgression [if you can]…. (Isaiah 58:1 KJV)

      (The phrase “if you can” in brackets was added by me.)

      That. And evidently, Sharon, you’ve become one who can. 😊

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      1. I second what Finding Answers said. Bless you, Sharon. :)

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6. Thank you, Finding Answers and Barb. 🕊

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