Luke 16:18

18 omnis qui dimittit uxorem suam et ducit alteram moechatur et qui dimissam a viro ducit moechatur

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 lex et prophetae usque ad Iohannem ex eo regnum Dei evangelizatur et omnis in illud vim facit
17 facilius est autem caelum et terram praeterire quam de lege unum apicem cadere
18 omnis qui dimittit uxorem suam et ducit alteram moechatur et qui dimissam a viro ducit moechatur
19 homo quidam erat dives et induebatur purpura et bysso et epulabatur cotidie splendide
20 et erat quidam mendicus nomine Lazarus qui iacebat ad ianuam eius ulceribus plenus
The Latin Vulgate is in the public domain.