BACKGROUND:
Again Malachi (The Prophet) stressed the Israelites’ spiritual insensitivity. Since they—surprisingly—could not imagine what the problem was (You ask, Why?), the prophet had to spell it out for them. The Lord was acting as the witness between such a man and his wife with whom he had broken faith, that is, whom he had divorced.
Malachi used strong language to emphasize God’s displeasure with divorce. He said, I hate divorce. “Hate” (from śānēʾ) means to detest. To underscore his point, Malachi said that this pronouncement was made by the Lord God of Israel. This recalls the fact that He is the sovereign Lawgiver and Judge of Israel. If God despises a practice, certainly it ought not be done.
This verse is the most explicit statement in the Old Testament on God’s feelings about divorce. Divorce was allowed but actually the instructions in that passage(Deuteronomy 24:1-4) were given to protect the wife if a divorce should occur. Jesus taught that those concessions by Moses were given because of the hardness of people’s hearts, but He emphasized that God does not approve of divorce (Matthew 19:7-9.
Bottom line: So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith. The Israelites were not to break faith with one another by divorcing their Jewish wives and intermarrying with pagans. By guarding their spirits they would be acting in accord with God’s purpose and would help preserve the unity of the nation as well as their individual marriages.
SO WHAT? (what will I do with what I have read today?)
I've written a belief paper on divorce for the church. If you would like to read through what our postion and belief is about divorce here at COV, you can access that this week by going to the COV website page that deals with our beliefs.
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