DIVORCE
Dissolution of the marriage bond. Moses had allowed men to divorce their wives for any reason, as we see in Deut. 24:1, 3; but the Lord Jesus maintained God’s original ordinance that what God had joined together, man had no right to separate; Therefore a man has no right to divorce his wife except on the grounds of fornication, when she herself has dissolved the marriage bond (Mt. 5:31, 32; 19: 3-9).
A divorce certificate must be given to the woman. The drafting of this document, and obtaining its endorsement through witnesses, was a certain brake on the altered temperament of the person who wanted to carry out his repudiation.
Divorce is used symbolically to express God’s action in repudiating Israel, which had been very unfaithful, by giving them a letter of divorce (Is. 50:1; Jer. 3:8).