Matthew Poole and continuators on Deuteronomy 24:1

1 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 in her hand, and send her out of his house .

(i. e.) He dislike and loath her. It is a figure called Melosis, whereby more is understood than is expressed, as Prov. 10. 2. and 17. 21. and 24. 23.

Heb. nakedness, or shamefulness, or filthiness of a thing, i. e. some filthy or hateful thing, some loathsome distemper of body or quality of mind not observed before Marriage: Or some light and unchast carriage, as this or the like phrase commonly signifies, but not amounting to Adultery, which was not punished with divorce, but with death.

Which is not a command to divorce them, as some of the Jews understood it, nor an allowance and approbation, as plainly appears not onely from the New Testment, Matth. 5. 31, 32. and 19. 8, 9. But also from the old Testament, Gen. 2. 24. Mal. 2. 16. but meerly a permission or toleration of that practise for prevention of greater mischiefs and cruelties of that hard hearted people towards their Wives, and this onely for a season, even until the time of reformation, as it is called Heb. 9. 10. i. e. till the coming of the Messias, when things were to return to their first institution and purest condition. The Husband is not here commanded to put her away, but if he do put her away, he is commanded to write and give her a bill of divorcement, before he send her out of his house. And though it be true, as our Saviour observes, that Moses did suffer these divorces, to wit, without punishing them, which also is here implyed, yet it must be acknowledged, that if we consult the Hebrew words, those three first verses may seem to be onely a supposition, and the words rendred, then let him write her, in the Hebrew run thus, and hath written her, and so it follows ver. 2. And she be departed out of his house, and be gone and become another mans wife; Then follows ver. 3. which, even according to our translation, carries on the supposition, And if the later husband hate her, &c. Then follows the position or prohibition ver. 4.

Marginal references: Mat. 5. 31. and 19. 7. Mar. 10. 4.; Heb. [illegible: 1 word] of nakedness. chap. 23. 14▪; Heb. cutti[illegible: 1+ letters]g off.