Does God Hate Divorce?
This question came up in a recent situation, and as I tried to answer it, I thought that it might be good for me to write on the matter as an opportunity to remind and instruct all of us. So here goes.
From early childhood in church, I remember that when the subject of divorce came up, it wasn't too long before someone would quote Malachi 2:16 as a proof of how bad it was: "‘For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the Lord of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously’ (King James Version)." The phrase "putting away" was the term used for divorce. We hated divorce, too, and in our church if you were divorced, you weren't free to do all the ministries others could do. Even if you never remarried, if you were divorced, you had been a party to something God hated and that spilled over into a permanent status of being less useful to God and the church.
When the New American Standard Bible came out, it seemed to make it clearer: “‘For I hate divorce,’ says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘and him who covers his garment with wrong,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously.’” By this time, there had been a divorce in my extended family, and I wondered if God hated my family member, and if this sin was worse than others.
But then came the New International Version. It reads a bit differently: “‘The man who hates and divorces his wife,' says the Lord, the God of Israel, 'does violence to the one he should protect,' says the Lord Almighty. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful.’"
And later still, the English Standard Version also follows this path: "For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”
Before I discovered this new direction in translation, my study of the Scriptures related to this subject led me to conclude that divorce is never God's desire for a marriage. However, Matthew 5 and 19, along with 1 Corinthians 7, reveal that unrepentant sins against a spouse could rise to the level of covenant-breaking that leads to divorce (the two sins we see in these Scriptures are immorality and abandonment--I believe there are others related to these, but let’s just consider these for now). God allows divorce in such circumstances that manifest the fallen condition of humanity (Jesus referred to it as “hardness of heart”). But because of my earlier training, I still felt that God somehow hated this sin more because of Malachi 2:16.
It was during my preparation for a sermon series called “No Easy Answers” I preached in 2013 that I began to dig into the reasons for the translation differences in Malachi. I can't take time to explain all the nuances here, but in the text of Malachi, the Lord is rebuking the unfaithfulness of the men of Israel in a number of ways, and one of them is unfaithfulness to the wives of their youth. The Hebrew is better understood saying that the hatred is not God's, but that of an evil husband toward his wife that he chooses to divorce--an act characterized here as selfish wickedness (the Hebrew verb "to hate" is in the 3rd person--"he hates," not the first person "I hate"--so the "hater" must be someone other than the Lord, who is speaking). Even before divorce had become rampant in the culture of Israel at the time of Jesus, God rebuked callous hearts that would cast aside wives so that they could pursue others. He obviously did not "hate" the wives who were abandoned. The KJV hints at what the NIV and ESV make clear--he hates the unfaithful hearts that would do such a thing to a spouse. To "hate and divorce" is to "cover one's garment with wrong" or "do violence to the one he should protect." God rebukes this, and we should all hate such hard-hearted cruelty.
So, in a very real sense, God "hates" the occurrence and consequences of such divorces." But this isn't the same thing that some people mean when they quote this verse. What I hear in some people's citation of this verse is that divorce is especially evil, and by extension anyone who divorces (or is divorced) has to deal with God's special indignation. But as I have suggested, this could not have been directed to the abandoned spouse. Nor, I would argue, is it directed toward those men and women who, despite their patient and repeated efforts to forgive and restore, find themselves abandoned or abused by a spouse who flouts their marital covenant.
So, let's be clear. Because God hates sin, this includes marital unfaithfulness of all sorts. And we could even say that it is especially under his judgment because the promises were made before him as the invited witness. But a spouse that has been so wrongfully treated may decide to end that marriage bond. The guilty party here is the spouse who broke the covenant, not the one who legally ended the marriage. God seems to have chosen this kind of “legal” response when he announced his "divorce" of the faithless northern tribes of Israel (Jeremiah 3:8).
Let's uphold the sanctity of the marriage covenant--it is to be a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and it requires grace and forgiveness every day. I've not only committed myself to helping the marriages around me stay together and get stronger, I've rejoiced to see God help couples overcome difficulties. But let us not assume that any time a marriage ends in divorce, that God hates those who experience it. Instead, let's agree with God about the tragic situation of a spouse who is mistreated and abandoned through the callous unfaithfulness of their partner. And let's grieve such brokenness and loss.
Let us also remember what the Lord clearly says he hates:
Making idols--objects of ultimate devotion that displace Him--Deuteronomy 16:22
The wicked and the lovers of violence--Psalm 11:5
...haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers--Proverbs 6:16-19
Robbery and wrong--Isaiah 61:8
Let's praise and thank God that sinners who do the very things he hates can cry out to him for forgiveness through the merits of Christ, and be saved, be cleansed, and be made whole--this obviously includes us if we look at the Proverbs reference and reflect on our own pride, deceitfulness, hatred of others, and so on.
And finally, let's remember that, as with so many other tragic events in this fallen world, God uses divorce, as he uses other violations of his perfect plans, to accomplish greater purposes in us and ultimately to bring about his glory and our good.
