Aorist vs. present infinitive in Matt 5:32

B. Ward Powers bwpowers at optusnet.com.au
Sat Oct 19 11:31:46 EDT 2002


B-greekers all:

I want to disagree quite strongly (but, I trust, in all due courtesy) with 
what some contributors have said about Mt 5:32. In my judgement the Greek 
has a different significance from a commonly-held view.

This is not an academic issue we are discussing - we are dealing with a 
question of meaning (ultimately, the meaning of the Greek) which is of 
profound significance for the lives and happiness of lots of real people in 
pain, who have had a marital break-up.

It is important for us to come to terms with what Jesus actually said (and 
didn't say) in Matthew's account.

Jesus says that a husband makes a woman who has not been guilty of sexual 
misconduct to be an adulteress by divorcing her. The wife who HAS been 
guilty of sexual misconduct is explicitly excluded by Jesus's exceptive 
clause from his comment: because she has made HERSELF to be an adulteress - 
it is not the husband's doing in such a case.

Jesus's comment is a trenchant criticism of the husband. He is putting his 
wife in the position of an adulteress by the act and fact of divorcing her. 
That is why the tense of MOICEUESQAI is aorist. Putting her into that 
position is effected by divorcing her. If (as many seem to think) it was a 
subsequent remarriage which would make her an adulteress (and of course 
under that interpretation she would continue to be an adulteress throughout 
that subsequent marriage), then we could expect the use of the present 
tense, as Dale Noonan rightly says in raising the issue.

And Waldo Slusher cuts to the issue when he points out that "it is the 
divorce itself that brings about the completion of the MOICEUW". Those who 
attribute this description of the woman as an "adulteress" to a subsequent 
remarriage are introducing an idea which the text DOES NOT SAY.

Do the facts justify an interpretation which makes Jesus say that EVERY 
woman divorced by her husband is forced into either actual immorality or 
remarriage? (The passage says "Whoever..." and "everyone ...") Why should 
such a woman not be capable of living independently? Why indeed should she 
be more constrained to remarry than a widow would be? (If she received back 
her dowry - usual unless divorced for adultery - she could be as well off 
as a widow.)

And other possibilities would frequently be open: living in the household 
of a married brother; returning to her parents' home; and so on. Leviticus 
22:13 expressly refers to a daughter who after divorce "returns to live in 
her father's house as in her youth".

And there is this tacit assumption built into this interpretation: that 
every such woman would not only want to remarry but would promptly be able 
to find a man ready and willing to oblige. This interpretation is 
unrealistic to say the least.

Additionally, this interpretation makes the "exceptive clause" pointless, 
because (on this view) every divorced woman is an adulteress through 
subsequent remarriage, and no statement of an exception is needed.

Perhaps some divorced women would be forced to seek an opportunity for 
remarriage, but the other options which were open hardly make justifiable 
the general statement applying to ALL such women. Suppose a divorced wife 
follows the lead of Leviticus 22:13 and returns to her father's house and 
never remarries: is SHE made an adulteress? According to the reasoning of 
those who see the adultery as occurring in the remarriage, she is not.

Jeff Smelser writes, "By whom is she adulterated? By the man who takes the 
writing of divorcement at face value and accordingly marries her and has 
intercourse with her. Because Jesus regards the writing of divorcement as 
ineffectual and the woman as yet belonging to the first man, he says the 
second man adulterates her just as he would adulterate any married woman by 
having intercourse with her."

George Somsel says, "It is the cohabitation with another partner which is 
the adultery, not the divorce.  The point of the saying is that the woman 
is expected to commit adultery by entering into
another relationship ..."

But Jesus says that she IS made an adulteress - he expressly says that his 
comment applies to everyone who is divorced by her husband in such 
circumstances. This discrepancy is enough to show that this interpretation 
is contrary to the facts, and wrong.

Mark Wilson, in responding to Jeff Smelser's first posting, is absolutely 
right in pointing out the error of this thinking when he says "... in this 
passage the woman is not adulterated by the next man; she is adulterated by 
the first man/husband."

In his second posting Jeff Smelser asks the question: "How does he [the 
first husband] cause her to be adulterated?" The answer resides in 
Deuteronomy 24:1-4, the Old Testament passage which lies behind our verse, 
and which gives sexual misconduct as the reason for a divorce. If therefore 
a husband puts away his wife, he has characterized her as an adulteress - 
given her this stigma and reputation which, in the situation Jesus 
describes, is unfair and unjustified, as she has not been guilty of such 
behaviour (the point of the exceptive clause).

William Boyd writes:

>Will the language allow for the possibility that the husband, putting away 
>a faithful wife, adulterates her by placing her into the position of one 
>who has committed adultery? That is, being divorced without adultery she 
>is placed into the same situation as a woman who was divorced because of 
>adultery. The passive verb seems to place the woman as the victim here.

Yes! You are absolutely right!

It is not a subsequent remarriage which does this to her, but the first 
husband, when he divorces her. This is indicated by the verb MOICEUESQAI, 
aorist passive. Being put in this situation is something which is done to 
her by the first husband by his divorcing her. And a man who subsequently 
marries her becomes tarred with the same brush (Mt 5:32c). The wagging 
tongues would say, "She must have been playing around for her husband to 
divorce her, and now we know who she was playing around with."

This is the significance of the aorist passive MOICEUESQAI. It is important 
for us all to recognize that the break-up of a marriage is disobedience to 
Christ and therefore sin (Mt 19:6), but it is not the unforgivable sin: it 
can be repented of, and the sinner justified by grace, and forgiven. "It is 
not good for a man to be alone." There is nowhere in Scripture which 
forbids or condemns a divorcee remarriage per se (contrast Mt 19:9).

When a first marriage ends and a person is having trouble living celibate, 
Paul instructs remarriage as the right course of action (1 Cor 7:9, Greek), 
and specifically says such remarriage after divorce is not sin (1 Cor 7:28, 
Greek).

Some people take the view, "You get just one chance at marriage and if that 
falls through, you are forbidden to marry ever again (unless your ex-spouse 
happens to die)." I submit that as a careful examination of the relevant 
passages show, this is NOT the teaching of Scripture.

Ward Powers




At 01:49 AM 021019 -0400, wmhboyd at aol.com wrote:
>Will the language allow for the possibility that the husband, putting away 
>a faithful wife, adulterates her by placing her into the position of one 
>who has committed adultery? That is, being divorced without adultery she 
>is placed into the same situation as a woman who was divorced because of 
>adultery. The passive verb seems to place the woman as the victim here.
>
>William Boyd
>Little Rock
>
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Rev Dr B. Ward Powers        Phone (International): 61-2-8714-7255
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AUSTRALIA.                         Director, Tyndale College




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