Marriage 104

The Heinous Doctrine of Divorce

In the preceding parts of this discussion we have shown that, based on the Judaic and Christian Scriptures, marriage is a permanent bond between a man and a woman, defined as occurring at an initial act of sexual intercourse. Regardless the amount of intellectual and/or emotional discomfort this may create in current Western society, disregarding that fact has done an incalculable amount of damage within Christianity, destroying relationships and causing mental and emotional harm to children and adults alike.

From the words of Jesus, in Matthew 5:31-32 He stated,

“It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.”

And Matthew 19:3-9

And there came unto him Pharisees, trying him, and saying, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said, ‘Have ye not read, that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh? So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses for your hardness of heart suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it hath not been so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that marrieth her when she is put away committeth adultery.”

As well as in Mark 10:2-9,

“And there came unto him Pharisees, and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? trying him. And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. But Jesus said unto them, For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of the creation, Male and female made he them. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh: so that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

And Luke 16:18

“Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.”

It was the express teaching of Jesus that (1) when the two join together in sexual intercourse they become one flesh, (2) that such joining is an act of God without any further action or sanction by any other authority, and (3) it is a bond which human agency cannot break. Thus Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:16,

“What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.”

and in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11,

”But unto the married I give charge, yea not I, but the Lord, That the wife depart not from her husband (but should she depart, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband); and that the husband leave not his wife.”

and verse 39,

” A wife is bound for so long time as her husband liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is free to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.”

This was not a new teaching. Recall that after the return to Judea by the exiles, there had been intermarriage with the non-Israelite people who had either been transplanted in the land by the Babylonians, or who had wandered in due to the depopulation that resulted from the war with Babylon. Ezra forced the men who had married foreign wives to divorce them (Ezra 10). It was further related by Ezra (Ezra 10:44),

“. . . and some of them had wives by whom they had children.”

Now if the Scriptures are searched, it is truly stated that God’s people were not to intermarry with the heathen. However, nowhere in the Torah is it commanded that a man who had married a foreigner must divorce her. Thus the words of Malachi, in opposition to Ezra’s act (Malachi 2:13-16),

“And this again ye do: ye cover the altar of Jehovah with tears, with weeping, and with sighing, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, neither receiveth it with good will at your hand. Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because Jehovah hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously, though she is thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.And did he not make one, although he had the residue of the Spirit? And wherefore one? He sought a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For I hate putting away, saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, and him that covereth his garment with violence, saith Jehovah of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.”

It is one of those interesting facts of Scripture, that while Jesus quotes Malachi, He never quotes Ezra.

We have alluded previously to the influence of patriarchal societies in regard to marriage customs. One of the marks of a patriarchal society is the practice of inheritance through the father. It is stressed repeatedly throughout the Tanach. The entire purpose for granting a divorce was not to end a marriage; God did not change the decree made at the first marriage. His purpose in permitting divorce was to provide for the innocent parties who would be affected — the children — to have some inheritance somewhere.

If a man divorced a wife with whom he had children, those children retained all their rights of inheritance even if their mother remarried. However, if she remarried without a formal release of the ketubah, any children she might have from that time on would be considered children born outside of wedlock and with no inheritance rights. A man who had children with a woman who was not free from the contractual relationships of her marriage had no obligation to provide an inheritance to those children; since she had no divorce papers. She was not free to contract with the second man because she was still under contract to the first. Consequently, it was considered a duty, a mitzvah, for a man to grant a divorce to a wife who left him, and the “chained woman”, the “agunah” who leaves her husband and who has not been granted a divorce, is still a problem in Jewish law today.

In no way, however, did the granting of a divorce undo the sexual intercourse that had instituted the marriage. While Graeco-Roman culture made the marriage contract the primary “glue” of the marriage, the mistaken idea that it did so carried on into the Church Age and was generally accepted because it was the pattern and practice of the pagan peoples among who the Christians dwelt. The first three centuries of church history are replete with the efforts of the bishops to purge as many vestiges of Judaism from Christianity.

Early on the simple concept of marriage as held by Jesus and His disciples began to be corrupted by the early bishops, who first suggested, then demanded, that couples obtain the permission of the church, through the bishop, to marry. That then developed into requirements that the marriage be formalized by the bishop, and ceremonies were developed to standardize the process. Along with this, the catechisms of the churches were developed to include a definition of marriage quite apart from the one in Scripture, and instead to echo the laws and customs of the Roman Empire.

The Church holds the exchange of consent between the spouses to be the indispensable element that "makes the marriage". The consent consists in a "human act by which the partners mutually give themselves to each other": "I take you to be my wife" - "I take you to be my husband." This consent that binds the spouses to each other finds its fulfillment in the two "becoming one flesh". If consent is lacking there is no marriage. - Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1626-1629

Note that in Roman Catholic theology, it it is the consent (agreement) rather than the sexual intercourse that "makes the marriage" -- a refutation of the teaching of the Apostle Paul, and of Jesus. The relationship of marriage thus became a “sacrament” which needed to be performed in a church by a church official. Protestantism got rid of most of the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church, except for baptism, communion, and marriage.

The Anabaptist movement generally removed marriage from the list of sacraments, but due to the statements of Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:14,

”Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers: for what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity? or what communion hath light with darkness?”

and 1 Corinthians 7:39,

” A wife is bound for so long time as her husband liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is free to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.”

even the Anabaptists, and most professing Christians today, maintained a belief that a wedding ceremony somehow makes a marriage more valid. This is because the concept of "equal yoking" and "only in the Lord" required some sort of validation by the congregation that such a relationship existed.

As the Church became more entangled in the governing of the relationship of marriage, it had to face the problems that arose when the relationships soured. For centuries the Roman Catholic Church had traditionally refused to permit divorce since that was the teaching of Jesus, but it then adopted the position that since it had defined marriage as a matter of consent, that if somehow that consent were fraudulently obtained or in some other way shown to be illegitimate, then the marriage could be annulled by decree of the church. A semantic ploy, the argument being that if the marriage were invalid (by the Church’s definition) then annulment was not the ending of a marriage, since (by the Church’s definition) the marriage had never occurred. It was a small step from there to recognize divorce, using the same reasoning.

Within Protestantism divorce was once considered to be possible only because traditionally most Protestant groups ceded the authority to legitimize marriage to government. If civil authorities had the right to regulate marriage, then they could also dissolve marriage. Thus, divorce was viewed as possible, but nevertheless sinful. In the latter part of the 20th Century social pressures began reshaping that area of Protestant theology, to the extent that what was once deemed shameful became acceptable; the Roman Catholic position that marriage required mutual consent became the norm. Thus, if the situation within the marriage changed such that consent was no longer there, the marriage would become void and divorce would end it.

The words of Jesus, however, can never be relegated to the dustbin of history if one is to call himself a true disciple. “What God has joined together is impossible for man to take apart.” A divorce decree may be granted by a civil authority, but it has no validity in Scripture with regard to ending a marriage, and the following points can be summarized from the teaching of the New Testament:

1. When a man and woman engage in sexual intercourse, the two become one flesh by the act and decree of God, and the bond cannot be broken except by the death of one of the partners. Divorce never ends a marriage.

2. A woman who engages in sexual intercourse with a second man commits adultery against her first partner, if the first partner is still living.

3. The only legitimate reason for a man to permanently separate from his wife is because he discovers she was involved in fornication prior to the marriage. If he permanently separates from her for any other reason, he is guilty of causing her to commit adultery.

4. If a man permanently separates from his wife for any other reason than that she committed fornication prior to marriage, and takes a second wife, he commits adultery.

5. A man who engages in sexual intercourse with a woman whose husband is still living commits adultery.

There is no leeway in the teaching of Jesus for the practice of divorce. The way is very narrow, yet we will see that there are other misunderstandings about the mystery of marriage.

Marriage 103To The Death, orThe Doctrine of the Sanctityof the Undefiled Woman

Cultures have had varying degrees of regard for virginity, but regardless the standing that the condition enjoys, it is irrefutable that it is impossible to restore it after having been lost; virginity is a state of pre-coital experience. Further, it should be noted that there does not appear to be any built-in species resistance to promiscuity; the level of behavior associated with recognition of chastity seems to be controlled more by social expectations than anything else. Interestingly, that may be just another way of saying that sin is a universal human trait.

In cultures where strict patrilineal inheritance is the rule, there seems to be a stricter standard with respect to the importance of virginity. That, however, is often selective. It is also generally one-sided, in that female virginity is prized, guarded, and infractions severely punished — often with death as the punishment for an unmarried woman who is found to no longer be virgin — whereas loss of male virginity in those same societies is seen as something celebratory, or at very least not a matter to be concerned about.

Such double standards color even the so-called Christian societies, where men who “sow their wild oats” are viewed as doing what just comes naturally, whereas a woman doing the same thing is viewed as “loose” or unfit for decent company. While there are varying degrees of acceptance or condemnation of such behaviors from one social group to the next, for the Christian, there must be a single standard, and that is total chastity, i.e., sexual intercourse is reserved for (and delineates) the confines of marriage.

From our previous discussion, we demonstrated that Biblical teaching shows that sexual intercourse joins the partners as a single relational unit, “one flesh”, which is then the operational definition of marriage. Further, within the Commonwealth of Israel, law and tradition strove to maintain purity of lineage.

A number of laws dealt with the treatment of unmarried women. Some appear at face to simply objectify the woman, as Deuteronomy 22:13-20:

“If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her, and lay shameful things to her charge, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came nigh to her, I found not in her the tokens of virginity; then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate; and the damsel's father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife, and he hateth her; and, lo, he hath laid shameful things to her charge , saying, I found not in thy daughter the tokens of virginity; and yet these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city.

And the elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him; and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver, and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days.

But if this thing be true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in the damsel; then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the harlot in her father's house: so shalt thou put away the evil from the midst of thee.”

Human society has not gotten any better through the ages at dealing with dissatisfaction and jealousy. The Hebrew requirement in the above situation is far more considerate than that found in a neighboring culture, where a man can simply pronounce the words, “I divorce thee”, and his wife is cast out of his home. God’s requirement in this situation was justice; if the woman was innocent, the man was punished and forever forbidden to divorce her. If she was guilty, then because she was committing adultery — her previous intercourse had linked her to a different man — her death was a necessity to free the man who had innocently entered into marriage with another man’s wife from the adulterous relationship.

There is additional New Testament insight to be gained from the statement of Paul in Romans 7:2-3:

”For the woman that hath a husband is bound by law to the husband while he liveth; but if the husband die, she is discharged from the law of the husband. So then if, while the husband liveth, she be joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if the husband die, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be joined to another man.”

Paul’s understanding of this undoubtedly came from his discipleship under Gamaliel. We know that many of Jesus’ teachings were also part of the teachings of Hillel, and further explorations of the Talmud might disclose the Pharisaic basis of his position. While the passage only speaks of the dying of the husband freeing the wife, it is patently obvious that the husband’s relationship would also end if the wife died. Freedom from the relationship, via death, provided avoidance of adultery if the survivor remarried.

Similarly, the very next verses deal with an all-too-common occurrence today (Deuteronomy 22:22):

”If a man be found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall both of them die, the man that lay with the woman, and the woman: so shalt thou put away the evil from Israel.”

and Leviticus 20:10,

”And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”

God was not about to be playing favorites; the adulterous man was as guilty as the adulterous woman. The purpose — to eliminate evil from society.

The woman was to be protected as much as possible from predacious men. In the first article of this series the Talmud was cited, “Kiddushin 1,1 specifies that a woman is acquired (i.e., to be a wife) in three ways: through money, a contract, and sexual intercourse. Ordinarily, all three of these conditions are satisfied, although only one is necessary to effect a binding marriage.” The contract (ketubah) was often drawn to ally families through their children, and could be made years prior to the actual physical consummation of the wedding (see the account of Joseph and Mary in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke). Thus the statements of Deuteronomy 22:23-27:

”If there be a damsel that is a virgin betrothed unto a husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them to death with stones; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbor's wife: so thou shalt put away the evil from the midst of thee.”

It was assumed that if the woman was honorable she would fight her attacker. It was also assumed that as the wife (betrothed) of her husband, she would be careful the she did not dress to incite other men, and that she would take care to avoid compromising situations such as being alone with a man or getting drunk in a mixed group. The claim of date rape would not hold up in such a situation; dating as practiced in contemporary Western culture would have been considered scandalously promiscuous behavior. One of the most serious problems, especially in the Christian culture, is a lack of understanding by each unmarried man and woman that, if it is God’s will that they marry at all, they are the the predestined mate of the person they will marry, and they should conduct themselves as already betrothed until such time that the actual betrothal occurs.

For this reason, and this reason alone, dating by Christian youth should be severely discouraged, since such encounters desensitize people to the fact that, in the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:28, “whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.” A man should lust only after his own wife, and a woman should lust only after her own husband, and within the context of “dating”, adulterous thoughts, as defined by Jesus, toward someone whom a person will not actually marry, are impossible to avoid.

”But if the man find the damsel that is betrothed in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her; then the man only that lay with her shall die: but unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death: for as when a man riseth against his neighbor, and slayeth him, even so is this matter; for he found her in the field, the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her.”

Once again, the death penalty was to be applied to the man committing adultery with another man’s (betrothed under the ketubah) wife. The purpose — to put away evil from Israel, but also to free the woman from the unwanted relationship.

Then, in Deuteronomy 22:28-29 we find a situation that seems to approximate the dating culture:

”If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, that is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he hath humbled her; he may not put her away all his days.”

An objection to this has been the idea that the woman is being forced to marry the man against her will. However, close examination of the context does not support that. First, if the episode occurred in a place where help would be available (in the city) and she did not cry out or attempt to fight him off, the presumption is that the episode was consensual, and under the Talmudic citation above, they had willingly married. Secondly, the phrase “and they be found” implies that they jointly tried to conceal it, and that it was consensual, whether in the city or in the countryside.

Finally, we have the situation described in Exodus 22:16-17:

”And if a man entice a virgin that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely pay a dowry for her to be his wife. If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.”

This is a bit more difficult, but may be associated with the divorce process as discussed in Deuteronomy 24:1-4:

”When a man taketh a wife, and marrieth her, then it shall be, if she find no favor in his eyes, because he hath found some unseemly thing in her, that he shall write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife . And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, who took her to be his wife; her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before Jehovah: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which Jehovah thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.”

It is important to understand the divorce process as outlined above. Remember the citation from the Talmud; usually all three elements were present in a marriage: the agreement, money, and sex. The divorce document basically rescinded the agreement and returned the money (nothing could be done to nullify the sex). In the case of the father not giving up his daughter, it could be either for her protection or because of his own greed and hard-heartedness due to pride. In both cases, the dowry was returned to the father so that a second marriage could be arranged and the woman would be able to bring something to the bargaining table. The statement of Jesus addresses both situations in Matthew 19:3-9:

”And there came unto him Pharisees, trying him, and saying, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?

And he answered and said, ‘Have ye not read, that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh? So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

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

He saith unto them, Moses for your hardness of heart suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it hath not been so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that marrieth her when she is put away committeth adultery.”

(In Luke 16:18 and Mark 10:11 the qualifier “except for fornication [porneias, generally adultery or incest]” is missing, but it is present in Matthew 5:32.)

In the view of Jesus, there was no action that could end a marriage aside from death — man-made regulations could not overturn the decree of God, and divorce had been provided because of the inevitability of human sin and the need to make sure that the woman who was put away from her husband would have the wherewithall to continue her life. The permission to remarry in Deuteronomy 24 did not, in the teaching of Jesus, eliminate the sinfulness of that second union while her first husband still lived.

Even today, among the Orthodox Jews, the descendants of a woman who obtains a civil divorce but not a religious divorce (in which the terms of the ketubah are nullified) are considered mamzer, unable to fully function in Orthodox Jewish society and synagogue worship. The writing of divorce was needed to bestow a semblance of decency to the lives of those innocently affected by a man unable to live up to his commitments. (Remember : divorce often happened to women who fell out of favor with their husbands and not because of adultery, in which case they would have been executed instead of divorced. Within the constraints of the written Torah, a woman did not have the right to divorce her husband.)

Some Christians have argued that Paul taught that divorce was permitted in certain instances in I Corinthians 7:12-15. However, he prefaces his statement in verse 12 by saying that what follows is his own private advice, not the Lord’s teaching. In the 15th verse, where he states “if the unbelieving depart, let him depart” he is not advocating for divorce but simply saying that an unbeliever determined to commit adultery will do so regardless of the believing spouse’s efforts and the believer should not allow his or her peace with God to be disturbed by the other’s actions. That Paul is NOT permitting divorce is evident from his words in verses 10 and 11 immediately preceding,

”And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband, but and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband, and let not the husband put away his wife.”

So, from Jesus we see that if a man divorces his wife, except for her participating in sex outside of marriage, he commits adultery, and if he divorces his wife for any other reason and then remarries, he commits adultery. If a divorced woman remarries, she commits adultery. Why? Because divorce does not end a marriage, only the death of one of the spouses ends a marriage.

From Paul, we have the teaching repeated. Wives are not to leave their husbands. If they do leave, they are not to remarry, and if possible should reconcile with their husbands. (Very realistically, there are situations where for the good of the relationship there must be a temporary separation, but it should never be the precursor to divorce.) Men are not to divorce their wives, and there are no qualifiers as to what the wife may or may not have done. If an unbelieving spouse leaves, the believing spouse is not required to compel them to stay or to divorce them.

The intent of God’s direction in these matters has always been to maintain the sanctity of His people. The rules of His kingdom often contradict the rules of human law, but those who walk in faith according to His Word will find that trading the practices and customs of this age for the truths of the Scriptures will bring peace and joy in fellowship with those who share the desire to serve the God of Israel, blessed be His Name forever in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Marriage 102The Doctrine of the Chosennessof the Bride

There are several issues that must be put to rest in order to come to grips logically with the Bible’s statements about the husband-wife relationship. None of these issues is currently politically correct. Most are not comfortable in contemporary Western society. They are all not even theologically acceptable in contemporary theology.

First, to the order of creation. In Genesis 1, it is stated that God made mankind as male and female. It is a matter of conjecture whether the “them” refers to more than one of each. In Genesis 2, He took the man (et-haAdam, the special creation of verse 7) and set him in the garden — alone. Because it was not good for the man to be alone, and there was no other creature that was fit to serve with the man,

“21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the place with flesh instead thereof. 22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from the man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. 23 And the man said: 'This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.' 24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.”

Note the order. God first. Then the man, chosen to work (l’avdah) in the garden. Not just any man — Adam was formed specifically for the task of tending the Garden. Then the woman, uniquely made to help the man. Note that the man had no choice as to where he would work — no free will there. The woman had no choice as to who she might marry; she was made specifically for the man because it was God who determined that the chosen man should not be alone. Note the man’s reaction; she is bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh, and observe God’s pronouncement that they are indeed one flesh. In light of Malachi 2:15, this is a very special match-up.

The order and the purpose will be repeated and reinforced throughout the Scripture. Paul reminds us of this in I Timothy 2:13. God arranged the first marriage. Parents in most cultures had strong influence in the marriages of their children. Even today, there remains the warning that Christians should not be unequally yoked with unbelievers in marriage — there should be planning and purpose in the arrangement. This idea has been sadly abused, especially where pagan thinking has been allowed to influence theological expression. That there is a purpose behind the making of each individual is clear, though, and there is a grand design realized within the lives of all those who embrace the Will of God.

Secondly, note the relationship. The two become one flesh. The “fitness” of Eve for Adam was a critical component in her making, and the concept of Malachi 2:15 (“For what seeketh the one? A seed given of God.” JPS Tanach) gives the reason why in the following ages, the fidelity of the wife would become a life and death issue. Despite her vanity that led her to be tricked by the serpent, she was still the “fit” partner of Adam. He may have blamed God for giving her to him, but he never did tell God to take her back.

Thirdly, the task. The very first command that God gave to mankind was to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. In Genesis we are introduced quickly to the “begats”. The concept of family and descendants immediately becomes apparent to the reader. If, perchance, the narrative of Genesis 1 leaves open the possibility of a different potentiality, we clearly see in the 2nd and 3rd chapters that God chose Eve to be the mother of a godly line. All of her descendants trace the male line through Noah to Abraham.

The Scripture does not give us much information about Noah. It states these facts about him : he was “a just man”, he was “perfect in his generations”, and he “walked with God”. Despite believing God’s warning about the Flood, and being labeled “righteous”, we are told that he “found grace in the eyes of the LORD”. In other words, he also deserved to drown, but God picked him out and favored him. His righteousness was in his faith in God, that translated into obedience — “Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.”

The really curious statement about Noah is the one about being perfect in his generations, coming after the statements about the “sons of God” taking wives from the “daughters of men”. If there ever was a different line than that which descended from Eve, it provides a possible solution to not only the question of where Cain got his wife, but also the strange phrasing about the source of the giants. There is an implication that Noah’s “chosen-ness” was connected to his matrilineal descent as well as from his fathers.

The narrative is strangely silent concerning women for the next few centuries. It is finally, more than 400 years after the Flood, that Abram comes on the scene, and the first post-Diluvial woman to be mentioned is Sarai, his sister, and then in the same verse, Milcah, his brother’s daughter.

Abram marries his sister, Sarai. He also marries his sister’s Egyptian slave. He also marries concubines - plural. God picks him out from all the other men of his time and tells him “Go West, young (70 year old) man, to the place I will tell you. Take your wife [singular], your slaves, your flocks, all you have, and start walking until I tell you to stop.” God promises to make him the father of many nations through Sarai, even though at 60 years old she still has not had a child.

Abram obeys, and despite all his flaws, is labeled righteous because he believed God — the proof of his faith was obedience. Even though he does some stupid stuff along the way, he has been picked out by God, and becomes known as the friend of God. He fathers Ishmael through Sarai’s slave, Hagar. Sarai gives Hagar to Abram to be his wife — alongside Sarai. Thus Abram and Hagar became one flesh, just as Abram and Sarai were one flesh. The marriage between Abram and Hagar does not end the marriage between Abram and Sarai, even though it alters the relationship between Sarai and Hagar. While Hagar is not the “wife” in whom the original promise was vested, the promise to Abram that his descendants would be a great nation was additionally extended to Ishmael.

But when Sarai is 89 years old, Abram gets Sarai pregnant at last, according to God’s insistence and in spite of her thinking she was too old. It is a defining moment in history; the LORD changes their names. The reason Abraham’s marriage to Sara has prominence is because God had picked her to be the mother of a special nation — the carrier of a Godly seed. Abraham at this point prefers that Ishmael would be the chosen one. God tells Abraham that both Ishmael and Isaac will father great nations, but that His covenant, regarding the godly line and redemption from sin as promised to Eve, would be with Isaac.

God chose Isaac before he was even born, but what is more interesting is that He chose Sara instead of Hagar, despite the indications that Abraham agreed to the arrangement with Hagar without any argument. Isaac and Ishmael were not the only sons of Abraham, but it was Isaac to whom God referred when he said, “Take now your son, Isaac, your only son…”

So it goes. Abraham sends his most trusted slave to find a wife for Isaac. The narrative shows us that Rebekah was picked out by God, and we see how God sets things up so that men think they are controlling the situation. Rebekah was the daughter of Milcah,who was the sister of Lot. Behind the scenes, we see Milcah’s son Laban scheming; it would not have been surprising had he been hatching a plan to force Rebekah to go as a way of getting the treasures that Abraham’s servant carried. It was God, however, who picked out Rebekah and Rebekah willingly — apparently eagerly — went to Isaac (she appears to be seeking an escape from her idolatrous family). Despite what seems to be the planning of men, the hand of God is obvious.

From what we are told, Isaac appears to have been a one-woman man. There is a curious twist, though, in the narrative. When he blesses Jacob, he states, “be lord over thy brethren and let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee”; when he blesses Ishmael, he states of Jacob, “all his brethren have I given to him for servants”. Plural, brethren? Again, we see God picking a favorite in Jacob, who is a scheming, lying, fearful little brother in the shadow of Esau.

Isaac would have preferred that Esau carry the family blessing. Through the curtain of human intrigue, we see God arranging everything ahead of time. Rebekah recommends that Jacob go see her brother Laban, and Jacob marries two of his cousins. While we see a bit of a tragi-comedy in all these marital maneuvers, we are reminded that the hand of God is at work, choosing the wives for His chosen men. Jacob is smitten with Rachel, yet God chooses Leah, who will be the mother of Judah.

Judah’s sons by Shuah the Canaanite were wicked, yet God chose Tamar to continue that lineage. While we may be somewhat flustered over the chain of events, Tamar appears to have been a more Godly influence than Shuah, and her son Pharez was the forebear of Salmon. Rahab, the Canaanite prostitute, testified to the greatness of the God of Israel, and was the mother of Boaz. Ruth the Moabite descendant of Lot, vowed to Naomi the she would adopt Naomi’s God, and was the grandmother of David the King.

Throughout the story, we see the choosing, the joining, and the laboring together as the lineage of Messiah is developed. There is a purpose to God’s choosing, even when it appears that the situation has accidentally developed out of sinful situations. In every marriage, while it may appear to be at first the choice of a man for a woman and perhaps her choice to accept the proposal, ultimately it is the choice of God as to who marries whom. For this reason, once the choice is made, for good reasons or bad, regardless how it is made, and the marriage consummated, any action to separate the marriage partners or defile the relationship is an act of rebellion against God, Whose choice has been executed behind the curtain of human cluelessness.