The Fallible Study Bible

The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible

Matthew5:31–32

Divorce

✦ Public-domain source — quoted & attributed⚙ AI synthesis — generated, verify

Matthew 5:31–32 — Divorce. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

31

It has also been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

Errethē de Hos an apolysē tēn autou gynaika dotō autē apostasion

Word by word11 · parsed
ἘρρέθηErrethēIt has also been saidG2046
√ ἐρέω — an alternate for G2036 (ἔπω) in certain tensesVerbAorist Indicative Passive3rd Person Singular
ἐρέω: to say, to speak (Aorist Passive) The passive of the quotation formula. In this one of the six antitheses Matthew drops “ye have heard” and gives only “it was said,” and Pulpit records Lightfoot's reading of the shortened form: it “whispers a silent objection, which is answered in the following verse.” Pulpit itself judges that reading strained, preferring simple closeness of subject to the preceding words on adultery. Either way, what follows is not quoted as God's command but as what men were saying.
δέde. . .G1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
δέ: but, and The small adversative that Pulpit flags as unique here among the six.
ὋςHosWhoeverG3739
√ ὅς — the relatively (sometimes demonstrative) pronoun, who, which, what, thatPersonal / Relative PronounNominative Masculine Singular
ἂνan. . .G302
√ ἄν — (what-, where-, wither-, who-)soeverParticle
ἄν: whosoever, in any case The particle that turns the relative into an open, unlimited case.
ἀπολύσῃapolysēdivorcesG630
√ ἀπολύω — to free fully, iVerbAorist Subjunctive Active3rd Person Singular
ἀπολύω: to loose away, to release, to dismiss (Aorist Subjunctive) The verb that carries this whole unit: it appears again at v. 32 as a present participle and a third time as a perfect participle, so the unit is built on three tenses of one act. Gill glosses the force exactly: “dissolve the marriage bond, dismiss her from his bed, and send her from his house.” The Verifier's candidates show the same lexeme standing under Matthew 19:7, 19:9, Mark 10:4, 10:11, 10:12 and Luke 16:18, which is the whole divorce discussion of the Gospels.
τὴνtēnG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Feminine Singular
αὐτοῦautouhisG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive Masculine 3rd Person Singular
γυναῖκαgynaikawifeG1135
√ γυνή — a womanNounAccusative Feminine Singular
γυνή: woman, wife One noun for both; the English must choose, and the relation decides.
δότωdotōmust giveG1325
√ δίδωμι — to give (used in a very wide application, properly, or by implication, literally or figurativelyVerbAorist Imperative Active3rd Person Singular
δίδωμι: to give (Aorist Imperative) The single positive command in the quoted precept. Everything Moses legislated at this point is a piece of writing handed over: JFB calls it “a legal check upon reckless and tyrannical separation,” which is to say the law regulated an abuse it did not create.
αὐτῇautēherG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounDative Feminine 3rd Person Singular
ἀποστάσιονapostasiona certificate of divorceG647
√ ἀποστάσιον — properly, something separative, iNounAccusative Neuter Singular
ἀποστάσιον: a writ of separation A rare word: the Verifier counts it in three verses only (here, Matthew 19:7, Mark 10:4), and all three are this same debate. Ellicott identifies the quoted line as “the popular Rabbinic explanation of Deuteronomy 24:1,” not the Mosaic text itself; Barnes notes what the certificate actually did, certify “the fact she had been his wife, and that he had dissolved the marriage,” which was her only protection in law. Cambridge reports that copies of such bills survive and that the formula can be read in Lightfoot.
32

But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, brings adultery upon her. And he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

de egō legō hymin hoti pas ho apolyōn tēn autou gynaika parektos logou porneias poiei moicheuthēnai autēn kai hos ean gamēsē apolelymenēn moichatai

Word by word23 · parsed
δὲdeButG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
δέ: but The pivot from what was said to what is now said.
ἐγὼegōIG1473
√ ἐγώ — I, mePersonal / Possessive PronounNominative 1st Person Singular
ἐγώ: I (emphatic) The unnecessary pronoun. Against a quoted precept of Moses as the schools construed it, the speaker sets nothing but himself, and Barnes reads the whole move as a restoration rather than a novelty: “Our Saviour brought marriage back to its original intention.” Gill guards it from the other side: Christ “does not infringe, or revoke the original grant.”
λέγωlegōtellG3004
√ λέγω — properly, to "lay" forth, iVerbPresent Indicative Active1st Person Singular
λέγω: to say, to lay forth (Present Indicative) Present tense, continuous authority, over against the aorist passive “it was said” of v. 31.
ὑμῖνhyminyouG4771
√ σύ — thouPersonal / Possessive PronounDative 2nd Person Plural
ὅτιhotithatG3754
√ ὅτι — demonstrative, that (sometimes redundant)Conjunction
πᾶςpasanyoneG3956
√ πᾶς — all, any, every, the wholeAdjectiveNominative Masculine Singular
πᾶς: all, every The universal that removes every private exemption the casuists had built.
ὁhoG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
ἀπολύωνapolyōnwho divorcesG630
√ ἀπολύω — to free fully, iVerbPresent Participle ActiveNominative Masculine Singular
ἀπολύω: to loose away, to dismiss (Present Participle) The second of the unit's three forms of this verb. Where v. 31 legislated the act, here the act is made a character.
τὴνtēnG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Feminine Singular
αὐτοῦautouhisG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive Masculine 3rd Person Singular
γυναῖκαgynaikawifeG1135
√ γυνή — a womanNounAccusative Feminine Singular
παρεκτὸςparektosexceptG3924
√ παρεκτός — near outside, iPreposition
παρεκτός: apart from, except A rare preposition: the Verifier counts it in three verses in all (here, Acts 26:29, 2 Corinthians 11:28). Pulpit records that Matthew alone, in both places (here and 19:9), gives this exception at all, which is a textual fact the reader should weigh before building on it.
λόγουlogouforG3056
√ λόγος — something said (including the thought)NounGenitive Masculine Singular
λόγος: something said, a matter, a case The word the English versions silently absorb. It keeps the sentence inside the casuistic argument: the schools of Shammai and Hillel were disputing which alleged matters qualified, and JFB reports the two readings of Deuteronomy's “some uncleanness” precisely as narrow and wide.
πορνείαςporneiassexual immoralityG4202
√ πορνεία — harlotry (including adultery and incest)NounGenitive Feminine Singular
πορνεία: harlotry, including adultery and incest The broader of the two available nouns. Pulpit gives the reason for the choice: “The more general word ( πορνεία ) is used, because it lays more stress on the physical character of the sin than μοιχεία would have laid.” Gill agrees that it “must not be taken strictly for what is called fornication, but as including adultery, incest, or any unlawful copulation,” while Ellicott argues the generic term is meant to cover ante-nuptial sin as well. The breadth of the word is sourced; the exact boundary is contested among these very commentators.
ποιεῖpoieibringsG4160
√ ποιέω — to make or do (in a very wide application, more or less direct)VerbPresent Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
ποιέω: to make, to do A causative active indicative set directly against the passive infinitive that follows it: the husband does not merely permit a result, he manufactures it. Gill spells out the mechanism without softening it, that should she commit adultery “he is the cause of it, by exposing her, through a rejection of her, to the sinful embraces of others.” The grammar therefore does what the schools of Hillel and Shammai never did: it assigns the verb of doing to the man and the verb of suffering to the woman, and so answers the casuists' question (what may I do?) with a question about what he has made of her.
μοιχευθῆναιmoicheuthēnaiadulteryG3431
√ μοιχεύω — to commit adulteryVerbAorist Infinitive Passive
μοιχεύω: to commit adultery (Aorist Infinitive Passive) The passive infinitive is the sharpest grammatical fact in the unit. Read as Pulpit and Cambridge read it, the wife is the one sinned against: having been dismissed without cause she is pushed into a second union that God does not count as free. Gill traces the mechanism plainly: “she is his proper wife, the bond of marriage not being dissolved by such a divorce.”
αὐτὴνautēnupon herG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounAccusative Feminine 3rd Person Singular
καὶkaiAndG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
καί: and Joins the second sentence, which Pulpit notes Westcott and Hort bracket on Western evidence.
ὃςhoshe whoG3739
√ ὅς — the relatively (sometimes demonstrative) pronoun, who, which, what, thatPersonal / Relative PronounNominative Masculine Singular
ἐὰνean. . .G1437
√ ἐάν — a conditional particleConjunction
γαμήσῃgamēsēmarriesG1060
√ γαμέω — to wed (of either sex)VerbAorist Subjunctive Active3rd Person Singular
ἀπολελυμένηνapolelymenēna divorced womanG630
√ ἀπολύω — to free fully, iVerbPerfect Participle Middle or PassiveAccusative Feminine Singular
ἀπολύω: to dismiss (Perfect Participle) The third form of the verb, and a perfect: a state, not an event. The whole confessional dispute Ellicott lays out (Rome against the Greek and Reformed churches) hangs on whether this participle is indefinite (“any divorced woman”) or resumes the woman of the previous clause (“her, when she has been put away”). Ellicott himself prefers the second, and so limits the guilt to the wrongly divorced case.
μοιχᾶταιmoichataicommits adulteryG3429
√ μοιχάω — (middle voice) to commit adulteryVerbPresent Indicative Middle or Passive3rd Person Singular
μοιχάω: to commit adultery (Present Middle or Passive) A rare verb, in four verses only, all of them this same saying (here, Matthew 19:9, Mark 10:11, 10:12). JFB's reason for the second clause is the reciprocity of the bond: “for if the commandment is broken by the one party, it must be by the other also.”

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. The saying that was quoted, and who was quoting it — 5:31

The verse opens with a bare aorist passive, Ἐρρέθη, “it was said,” and Pulpit notes what is missing: this is the only one of the six antitheses without “ye have heard,” and the Revised Version rightly gives “it was said also.” Ellicott states the decisive point of provenance: the words quoted are “the popular Rabbinic explanation of Deuteronomy 24:1,” not the Mosaic law verbatim, and Pulpit says the same from the other side, that the verse gives “the substance of Deuteronomy 24:1, but leaving out all mention of cause for such putting away.” Gill presses it further still: divorce “was not any law of Moses, or of God by him; but only a permission, because of the hardness of the hearts of the Jews.” What is set up for contradiction, then, is not Scripture but a use of Scripture. JFB describes what the Mosaic provision actually accomplished, “a legal check upon reckless and tyrannical separation,” and Barnes describes what the certificate did for the woman: it certified “the fact she had been his wife, and that he had dissolved the marriage.” ⚙ The single imperative in the quoted line is δότω, “let him give.” Everything Moses commanded at this point was a handing over of paper.

ii. The two schools, and which one the Lord upheld — 5:31, 5:32

Four of the commentators here independently frame the verse by the rabbinic dispute. Ellicott: the stricter party of Shammai held that the “uncleanness” of Deuteronomy meant simply unchastity, while “the followers of Hillel held, on the other hand (as Milton among Christian teachers), that anything that made the company of the wife distasteful was a sufficient ground for repudiation.” JFB reports the same division and adds that the laxer view was “too well fitted to minister to caprice and depraved inclination not to find extensive favor.” Gill quotes the Mishnah itself (Gittin 9.10) with the house of Hillel permitting divorce if a wife should spoil his food, and R. Akiba if the husband “finds another more beautiful than her.” Benson, citing Macknight, relays Josephus and the same saying of Akiba, “that a man may put his wife away, if he likes any other woman better.” Cambridge records a rabbinic maxim of the same temper: “If any man hate his wife, let him put her away.” Pulpit concludes flatly, “Our Lord upholds the school of Shammai,” and Ellicott, noticing the irony, observes that on the Sabbath question Jesus might have been claimed by Hillel, yet here “stamps the impress of His approval on the teaching of his rival.” ⚙ The convergence of these ten independent public-domain witnesses on the Hillel and Shammai background is strong; the detail of the rabbinic sayings reaches us at second and third hand through Lightfoot and Macknight, and should be held as reported tradition, not as verified text.

iii. The passive infinitive, and where the guilt lands — 5:32

The grammar carries the reversal. Three forms of one verb, ἀπολύω, govern the unit: aorist subjunctive in v. 31 (the legislated act), present participle in v. 32 (the man who makes a practice of it), perfect participle at the end (the woman who now stands in the condition of having been put away). Against that, ποιεῖ is causative and μοιχευθῆναι is passive. Pulpit, following the reading of Lachmann, Tischendorf and Tregelles, states the consequence: the right reading “connotes being sinned against rather than sinning,” and the Revised Version therefore gives “maketh her an adulteress.” Cambridge says the same: on that reading “the idea of wilful sin on the woman’s part is removed.” Gill supplies the mechanism, that the unjustly dismissed woman is still “legally the wife of another man,” so that the second union is adultery not because she chose evil but because the bond was never actually loosed. Benson, through Macknight, puts it in one clause: “unjust divorce being no divorce in the sight of God.” ⚙ Where the schools argued over what excused a man, the sentence itself moves the weight onto him: he is the subject of the causative verb, and she is the object of the passive one. Two honest cautions belong with this: Pulpit records that Matthew alone, in both places, gives the exception of fornication, and that the final clause is bracketed by Westcott and Hort on Western evidence (D and Old Latin); and Ellicott lays out the unresolved question of the innocent party's remarriage, on which JFB notes that Rome says no while “the Greek and Protestant Churches allow it.”

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ This is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested, and the pull quote beside it is a sentence of machine synthesis, not a verse of Scripture. Read under Sola Scriptura, the unit does something more surgical than tighten a rule. v. 31 quotes a saying in the passive voice with no speaker named, and every commentator here agrees the saying is a construal of Deuteronomy 24:1 rather than its text. So the antithesis is not Christ against Moses; it is Christ against a use of Moses that had turned a protection into a permission. Notice what survives and what falls: the certificate survives as testimony to a real wound (Barnes is right that it protected the woman in law), but the ground for issuing it is taken out of the husband's hands. Grammatically the verse does this by two strokes, a causative active verb for him and a passive infinitive for her. The man who signs the document and the man who marries the dismissed woman are both named; the dismissed woman is not charged at all. ⚙ It is worth saying plainly what the passage does not settle, since the commentators themselves do not settle it: whether the innocent party may remarry (JFB says the text does not treat of it), whether the exception covers ante-nuptial sin only (Ellicott's suggestion), and whether the final clause stood in the earliest text (Pulpit's note on Westcott and Hort). A reading that claims more certainty than the sources carry is not a stricter reading, only a louder one.

The certificate was Moses writing down a wound; the schools had begun to read it as permission to inflict one.

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

The three verses where the certificate is named verbal / quotation: confirmed

⚙ The noun ἀποστάσιον occurs in three verses in the whole New Testament, and the Verifier lists two of them here: Matthew 19:7 and Mark 10:4. Both are the Pharisees quoting the same Deuteronomic provision back at Jesus, and in both the Verifier also records ἀπολύω. Ellicott ties this unit to that later scene explicitly, saying the permission was given, “as our Lord teaches in Matthew 19:8, on account of the hardness of men’s hearts,” and Barnes appeals to Mark 10:1-12 for the same reason. So the Sermon's compressed antithesis and the later controversy dialogue are one argument in two settings.

Matthew 19:7 · Mark 10:4

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G647 ἀποστάσιον (in 3 vv, which is its entire New Testament range) plus G630 ἀπολύω (in 61 vv) and G1325 δίδωμι (in 378 vv); a rare shared lexeme across Greek texts only

One saying, four Gospel settings verbal / quotation: confirmed

⚙ The Verifier's strongest candidates after the certificate texts are Matthew 19:9, Mark 10:11, Mark 10:12 and Luke 16:18, each pairing ἀπολύω with a rare adultery verb. Pulpit lists the parallels independently: “Mark 10:12; Luke 16:18,” judging Mark's context to answer to Matthew 19:1-8 and Luke's rather to this Sermon, and adds that “Matthew alone, in both places, gives the exception of fornication.” That last observation is the reason to read the four together rather than harmonise them quickly: the shared vocabulary is verifiable, the exception clause is not evenly distributed.

Matthew 19:9 · Mark 10:11 · Mark 10:12 · Luke 16:18

basis: Verifier: shared G3429 μοιχάω (in 4 vv, and all four are this saying) at Matthew 19:9, Mark 10:11, Mark 10:12; shared G3431 μοιχεύω (in 12 vv) with G630 ἀπολύω and G1135 γυνή at Luke 16:18; all refs are Greek New Testament

The precept behind the quotation: Deuteronomy 24:1 structural / thematic: confirmed

Every commentator in this unit names the same source text. Barnes: “That is, by Moses, Deuteronomy 24:1-2.” JFB calls it “a civil enactment on the subject of divorce, quoted from De 24:1.” Poole prints it in full: “When 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 her in her hand, and send her out of his house.” Ellicott adds that the precept's own words were vague, which is exactly what made two schools possible. ⚙ This link is real and universally attested, but it cannot be tiered verbal in this system: Matthew is Greek and Deuteronomy is Hebrew, so no shared Strong's lexeme can be computed between them, and the Verifier returns none. The connection is recorded on the testimony of the commentators and on the shared legal pattern (dismissal, written instrument, release), not on a machine-checked verbal identity.

Deuteronomy 24:1

basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew): shared Strong's numbers are impossible and the Verifier computes none; the basis is the shared legal pattern of dismissal plus written instrument, named as the source text by Ellicott, Benson, Barnes, JFB, Poole, Gill and Pulpit alike

παρεκτός: the same rare preposition, a different subject verbal / quotation: confirmed

⚙ The Verifier flags Acts 26:29 and 2 Corinthians 11:28 because παρεκτός stands in three verses only, and these are the other two. Paul uses it of chains (“except these bonds”) and of everything outside his catalogue of sufferings; Matthew uses it to carve the one exception out of a prohibition. The lexical link is genuine and rare; the theological link is thin, and is recorded here to show a reader what a rare-word match does and does not prove. ⚙ Weight it as vocabulary, not as doctrine.

Acts 26:29 · 2 Corinthians 11:28

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G3924 παρεκτός (in 3 vv, the entire New Testament range), Greek to Greek; a verbal match only, with no shared subject matter, so no thematic claim is made

Inside the same antithesis: the look and the certificate structural / thematic: confirmed

⚙ The Verifier links this unit back to Matthew 5:27 and 5:28 through μοιχεύω and γυνή, which is the seam of the Sermon itself. JFB states the connective logic: “The law of divorce, according to its strictness or laxity, has so intimate a bearing upon purity in the married life, that nothing could be more natural than to pass from the seventh commandment to the loose views on that subject then current.” Ellicott sharpens the motive: “Men might think that they could avoid the sin of adultery by taking the easy course of divorcing one wife before marrying another.” ⚙ Read that way, vv. 31 to 32 are not a new topic but the closing of a legal escape hatch out of v. 28.

Matthew 5:27 · Matthew 5:28

basis: Verifier: shared G3431 μοιχεύω (in 12 vv) and G1135 γυνή (in 195 vv), plus G2046 ἐρέω (in 96 vv) at 5:27; a real Greek to Greek lexical overlap, tiered structural because the link is continuity of argument within one discourse, not a quotation

Paul on the standing bond, and on a desertion Matthew does not treat flagged: verify source

Pulpit notes that “St. Paul refers in 1 Corinthians 7:10, 11 to this saying of our Lord's,” and Benson, through Macknight, presses the harder half: “yet the apostle, 1 Corinthians 7:15, plainly allows another, viz., malicious and obstinate desertion in either of the parties.” Poole reaches the same passage from his own side. Pulpit also sends the reader to Romans 7:3 for the thought behind the passive infinitive, that a woman is called an adulteress while her husband lives. ⚙ Three of the four public-domain commentators who raise it treat the Pauline ground as a genuine addition rather than an exception drawn out of Matthew; a reader should notice that this is harmonisation across books, and that the Verifier reports no shared rare lexeme.

1 Corinthians 7:10-11 · 1 Corinthians 7:15 · Romans 7:3

basis: No Verifier candidate links these refs to this unit by shared lexeme; the connection rests on the cited judgment of Pulpit, Benson (via Macknight) and Poole, and the scope of 1 Corinthians 7:15 as a ground of divorce is openly contested among the commentators themselves

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The “But I say to you” of the Lawgiver ancient/widely-held

⚙ The emphatic ἐγὼ of v. 32 is the christological weight of the unit. A quoted precept of the Law, as construed by the schools, is answered not by a better exegete but by a man who says “I.” The commentators feel it without naming it a claim of deity. Barnes: “Our Saviour brought marriage back to its original intention... This is now the law of God.” Gill guards the same move from antinomian misuse, saying Christ “does not infringe, or revoke the original grant, or permission of divorce; only frees it from the false interpretations.” Poole says he “opposeth the Pharisees in two points” and, against the Council of Trent's claim of a churchly power to add causes, insists that the point was “determined” by “him, who is above them, God over all blessed for ever.” ⚙ That Poole makes the argument by identifying the speaker as God over all is the substance here: the sentence's authority is inseparable from the speaker's identity, which is how Genesis 2 comes back into force in Matthew 19.

Matthew 19:4-6 · Genesis 2:24

The husband who will not write the certificate ancient/widely-held

⚙ The unit turns on a man's power to dissolve a covenant at will, and the apostolic reading of marriage runs the analogy the other way: the covenant that Scripture makes the pattern of all marriage is one the husband does not dissolve. Paul takes the same Genesis text that stands behind Matthew 19 and applies it directly to Christ and the church, calling it a great mystery. The prophets had already put God's faithfulness in exactly the vocabulary of betrothal that outlasts the wife's unfaithfulness. ⚙ So the second clause of v. 32 is not only a fence; it is the shape of the gospel put negatively. The husband who could justly dismiss does not, and the union that the schools treated as terminable at a word is used by Paul to say what cannot be terminated.

Ephesians 5:31-32 · Hosea 2:19-20

“Where is your mother's certificate of divorce?” novel

⚙ Isaiah puts into God's mouth a challenge that uses the very instrument of Matthew 5:31: produce the bill of divorcement by which I put your mother away. The claim there is that no such document exists, that the separation was the people's own doing and not a legal dissolution by God. ⚙ Set beside this unit, that makes a pointed reading: the covenant God who refuses to issue the certificate is the same who here forbids his people to issue it lightly, and the exile that looked like divorce was never certified as one. I mark this honestly as my own arrangement. No commentator in this brief makes the connection, and the Verifier cannot compute a lexical link across the Hebrew and the Greek, so it stands or falls on whether the reader judges the figure to be really there in Isaiah.

Isaiah 50:1

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Joseph Benson, Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1810s)
  • Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible (1685)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

⚙ Honesty notes for this unit. (1) Text: Pulpit records that the final clause of v. 32 is “Bracketed by Westcott and Hort, as omitted by certain 'Western' authorities (especially D and Old Latin manuscripts),” and that the BSB's passive μοιχευθῆναι is a reading against the Received Text's μοιχᾶσθαι, a difference Cambridge also flags as removing “the idea of wilful sin on the woman’s part.” The interlinear parse supplied in the brief gives the passive, and this synthesis follows it. (2) Scope: Pulpit notes that Matthew alone, in both 5:32 and 19:9, carries the exception of fornication; readers building a doctrine on the exception should weigh that distribution. (3) Provenance of the rabbinic material: the sayings of Hillel, Shammai and R. Akiba reach this page through Gill (citing Mishnah Gittin 9.10 and Maimonides), Benson (citing Macknight citing Josephus), Cambridge and Pulpit (both citing Lightfoot's Horae Hebraicae). The convergence is strong, the chain is second hand, and nothing in it was independently verified here. (4) Unresolved among the sources themselves: whether the innocent party may remarry (JFB records Rome saying no, “the Greek and Protestant Churches” yes, and says the text “is not treated of here”); whether πορνεία reaches ante-nuptial sin (Ellicott suggests yes, Pulpit says “The reference is to sin after marriage”); and whether desertion is a further ground (Benson via Macknight and Poole say yes from 1 Corinthians 7, which Matthew does not say). This synthesis deliberately leaves all three open. (5) Cross-Testament threads here (Deuteronomy 24:1, Isaiah 50:1, Hosea 2, Genesis 2:24) carry no machine-verified lexical basis, because a Greek text and a Hebrew text share no Strong's numbers; they are tiered structural, typological or flagged accordingly. (6) Voices: eight of the ten public-domain commentators in the source set are quoted above. The two that are not, Henry and Geneva, offer nothing verse-specific here: Henry's entry is a single block note covering 5:27-32, and Geneva's is the verse text followed by a bare heading. Their silence is recorded rather than filled. (7) The ⚙ material, including the sola reading and its pull quote, is machine synthesis and fallible; the ✦ excerpts are verbatim public-domain commentary, and the verse text is the BSB.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)