July 11 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Deuteronomy 24:1-5

¹When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.
²And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife.
³And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife;
⁴Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.
⁵When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business: but he shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer up his wife which he hath taken.

Devotional

In the beginning God declared that a man and a woman were to become one flesh in marriage. Their union was until death and no one was to separate them. Then there was the Fall. It affected marriage just as it affected all other aspects of life.

So it was that God, one might say, gave reluctant permission for divorce, knowing that often sinful men and women were making a hell for themselves and for their children as they tried to maintain a home where there was no love.

The type of divorce that was permitted in Old Testament days was a total breaking of the bond. And remarriage to another person was permitted in that case. However, the original couple could not resume their marriage relationship at a later time.

As the Lord Jesus tells us, in the beginning this was not so. He laid down for us today a much stricter regulation concerning marriage (Matthew 19:3-9; Mark 10:2-9). But the Christian should understand these verses in Deuteronomy and their place in the history of God's peopie.

This, you see, was really a sign of God's grace. And verse five is another sign! What a tender verse this is! How like God it was to provide for the new bride a year in which her husband was to be freed from duty in war and business responsibilities in order to be able to stay at home and cheer up his wife! This was a long honeymoon! This is surely in line with the general tenor of Scripture that a man should love his wife as himself and treat her gently. After all, that is how the Lord, the Husband, loves and treats His Bride the Church.