Deuteronomy24:1–5

The bill of divorce that God writes against Israel verbal / quotation — confirmed

The phrase sêp̄er kᵉrîṯuṯ, "writing of cutting-off," occurs in only four verses in the entire Hebrew Bible — twice here (Deuteronomy 24:1, 3) and twice in the prophets, where Yahweh applies it to Himself. In Jeremiah 3:8, "I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce," God divorces faithless Israel with the very instrument of this law; and in Isaiah 50:1, "Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whereby I have put her away?" He insists He gave none. The link rests on the genuinely rare lexeme kᵉrîṯuṯ (H3748, found in only 4 verses), together with sêp̄er (H5612) and shâlach (H7971, "send away") — all three confirmed shared by the Verifier. The prophets take a private legal procedure and make it the grammar of the covenant.

Jeremiah 3:8 · Isaiah 50:1

basis: rare shared lexeme H3748 kᵉrîythûwth — "a cutting (of the matrimonial bond)," found in only 4 verses in all of Scripture (Deut 24:1, 24:3; Isa 50:1; Jer 3:8) — plus H5612 çêpher and H7971 shâlach. Verifier-confirmed Hebrew↔Hebrew verbal link on the unique idiom "bill / writing of divorce."

Jeremiah 3:1 — the law quoted to magnify mercy structural / thematic — confirmed

Jeremiah 3:1 is the inspired commentary on this unit, recognized as such by Ellicott ("the comment upon this, supplied by Jeremiah 3:1, is singularly beautiful") and Gill. The prophet recites the law's own logic — "If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? Shall not that land be greatly polluted?" — echoing Deuteronomy's shâlach (send away), ʼiššâh (wife), and shûwb (return) — then overturns the expected answer: "yet return again to me, saith the LORD." The Verifier confirms the shared structural vocabulary (H7971 shâlach, H802 ʼishshâh, H7725 shûwb); because these are common legal words rather than a single rare lexeme, the link is structural/thematic — but it is the strongest kind, since the prophet is deliberately quoting and inverting this very statute.

Jeremiah 3:1

basis: shared lexemes H7971 shâlach (790 vv), H802 ʼishshâh (686 vv), H7725 shûwb (950 vv) — common words, so tiered structural not verbal; the binding link is that Jeremiah 3:1 deliberately rehearses this law's own conditional logic ("shall he return unto her again?") to set off God's mercy. Verifier-confirmed Hebrew↔Hebrew.

Abomination that defiles the land structural / thematic — confirmed

The verdict of verse 4 — that serial remarriage-and-return is a tôʻêḇâh (abomination) that would "cause the land to sin" — places this marriage offense in the same category Leviticus uses for the sexual sins that "defiled" the land so that it "vomited out" its inhabitants (Leviticus 18:25–29). The Verifier confirms the Leviticus leg rests on the shared lexeme ṭâmêʼ (H2930, "to defile," the very verb of v. 4's huṭṭammâʼâh), while the link to Malachi 2:11 — which uses the same word of marital treachery in Judah: "Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD... and hath married the daughter of a strange god," an tôʻêḇâh, with Malachi 2:16 adding "the LORD... hateth putting away" — rests on the shared lexeme tôwʻêbah (H8441). Both are common covenant terms (142 and 112 verses), so each leg is thematic, not verbal; together they bind the defilement-and-abomination motif across the divorce material of the Law and the Prophets.

Leviticus 18:25 · Malachi 2:11

basis: two distinct shared lexemes, each common: Deut 24:4 ↔ Leviticus 18:25 shares H2930 ṭâmêʼ ("to defile," 142 vv) — the verb behind v. 4's huṭṭammâʼâh; Deut 24:4 ↔ Malachi 2:11 shares H8441 tôwʻêbah ("abomination," 112 vv). Both high-frequency, so the link is thematic not verbal — the binding motif is a sexual/marital sin that defiles the land. Both legs Verifier-confirmed Hebrew↔Hebrew.

One flesh — the bond the cutting severs structural / thematic — confirmed

Keil reads the "writing of cutting-off" against Genesis 2:24: the kᵉrîṯuṯ is "hewing off... from the man, with whom the wife was to be one flesh (Genesis 2:24)." The connection is conceptual, not lexical in the rare sense — Deuteronomy 24 and Genesis 2 share only the common words ʼîš (man) and ʼiššâh (woman/wife), as the Verifier confirms — but it is the ground on which the New Testament builds: our Lord answers the Pharisees' question about this very law by going behind it to the Genesis order, "the two shall become one flesh... what therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder" (Matthew 19:5–6). The divorce law presupposes the union it cannot un-create without a wound.

Genesis 2:24 · Matthew 19:6

basis: shared common lexemes H376 ʼîysh and H802 ʼishshâh only (Verifier-confirmed for Deut 24:1 / Gen 2:24) — so thematic, not verbal; the binding link is the "one flesh" union (Gen 2:24) that the "cutting-off" presupposes, the basis Christ Himself returns to in Matt 19. The Matthew leg is cross-Testament and carries no shared Hebrew lexeme.

"Moses suffered you because of your hardness of heart" ancient/widely-held

This unit is the text the Pharisees set before Christ — "Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?" (Matthew 19:7) — and His answer interprets the whole passage authoritatively. The voices anticipate Him: Barnes writes that "The exact spirit of the passage is given in our Lord's words to the Jews', 'Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives'" (Matthew 19:8), and JFB that the law was tolerated "only for a season, even until the time of reformation... till the coming of the Messias, when things were to return to their first institution and purest condition." Christ does not abolish Moses; He distinguishes what Moses permitted from what God willed "from the beginning" (Genesis 2:24), restoring the marriage bond the law had only fenced. Because this is a cross-Testament link — Greek Gospel reading a Hebrew law — it rests on Christ's own citation and on figure, not on any shared original-language lexeme; the Verifier finds none, so the connection is argued typologically, not asserted as verbal.

Matthew 19:8 · Mark 10:5 · Deuteronomy 24:1

The forbidden return that grace makes possible widely-held

The hardest word of the unit — the first husband "may not take her again... for that is an abomination" — becomes, in the prophets and at the cross, the very shape of redemption. Gill sees it: "such is the grace and goodness of God to his backsliding people, that he receives them when they return unto him their first husband... Jeremiah 3:1." What the Mosaic law forbids between estranged human spouses, the LORD does for adulterous Israel, and Christ consummates: He is the Bridegroom (John 3:29) who takes back the unfaithful bride no law could restore, "that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle... but that it should be holy and without blemish" (Ephesians 5:27). The captive of her own harlotry is washed, not divorced. As a cross-Testament and prophetic reading it is carried by Scripture's own application (Jeremiah 3:1; Hosea 2; Ephesians 5), not by shared Hebrew/Greek vocabulary, and is therefore offered typologically.

Jeremiah 3:1 · Ephesians 5:27 · Deuteronomy 24:4