Luke 16:18

18 Whosoever forsaketh his wyfe and marieth another breaketh matrimony. And every man which marieth her that is devorsed from her husbande committeth advoutry also.

Luke 16:18 Meaning and Commentary

Luke 16:18

Whosoever putteth away his wife
For any other cause than for adultery, as the Jews used to do upon every trifling occasion, and for every little disgust: by which instance our Lord shows, how the Jews abused and depraved the law, and as much as in them lay, caused it to fail; and how he, on the other hand, was so far from destroying and making it of none effect, that he maintained the purity and spirituality of it; putting them in mind of what he had formerly said, and of many other things of the like kind along with it; how that if a man divorces his wife, for any thing else but the defiling his bed,

and marrieth another, committeth adultery:
with her that he marries: because his marriage with the former still continues, and cannot be made void by, such a divorce:

and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband;
the phrase "from her husband", is omitted in the Syriac and Persic versions:

committeth adultery;
with her that he marries, because notwithstanding her husband's divorce of her, and his after marriage with her, she still remains his lawful and proper wife; (See Gill on Matthew 5:32). The Ethiopic version reads this last clause, quite different from all others, thus, "and whosoever puts away her husband, and joins to another, commits adultery", agreeably to (See Gill on Mark 10:12).

Luke 16:18 In-Context

16 The lawe and the Prophetes raygned vntyll the tyme of Iohn: and sence that tyme the kyngdom of God is preached and every man stryveth to goo in.
17 Soner shall heven and erth perisshe then one tytle of the lawe shall perisshe.
18 Whosoever forsaketh his wyfe and marieth another breaketh matrimony. And every man which marieth her that is devorsed from her husbande committeth advoutry also.
19 Ther was a certayne ryche man which was clothed in purple and fyne bysse and fared deliciously every daye.
20 And ther was a certayne begger named Lazarus whiche laye at his gate full of soores
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