Luke 16:18

18 Every man who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and a man who marries a woman divorced by her husband commits adultery.

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 Up to the time of Yochanan there were the Torah and the Prophets. Since then the Good News of the Kingdom of God has been proclaimed, and everyone is pushing to get in.

17 But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter in the Torah to become void.

18 Every man who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and a man who marries a woman divorced by her husband commits adultery.

19 "Once there was a rich man who used to dress in the most expensive clothing and spent his days in magnificent luxury.

20 At his gate had been laid a beggar named El`azar who was covered with sores.