Matthew 19:4

4 And he answered [and] said, "Have you not read that the one who created [them] from the beginning made them male and female

Matthew 19:4 Meaning and Commentary

Matthew 19:4

And he answered and said unto them
Not by replying directly to the question, but by referring them to the original creation of man, and to the first institution of marriage, previous to the law of Moses;

have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning, made
them male and female?
This may be read in ( Genesis 1:27 ) and from thence this sense of things collected; that God, who in the beginning of time, or of the creation, as Mark expresses it, made all things, the heavens, and the earth, and all that is therein, and particularly "man", as the Vulgate Latin, and Munster's Hebrew Gospel supply it here, made the first parents of mankind, male and female; not male and females, but one male, and one female; first, one male, and then, of him one female, who, upon her creation, was brought and married to him; so that in this original constitution, no provision was made for divorce, or polygamy. Adam could not marry more wives than one, nor could he put away Eve for every cause, and marry another: now either the Pharisees had read this account, or they had not; if they had not, they were guilty of great negligence and sloth; if they had, they either understood it or not; if they did not understand it, it was greatly to their reproach, who pretended to great knowledge of the Scriptures, and to be able to explain them to others; and if they did understand it, there was no need for this question, which therefore must be put with an evil design.

Matthew 19:4 In-Context

2 And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

3 And Pharisees came up to him [in order to] test him, and asked if it was permitted for a man to divorce his wife for any cause.

4 And he answered [and] said, "Have you not read that the one who created [them] from the beginning made them male and female

5 and said, 'On account of this a man will leave his father and his mother and will be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'?

6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, man must not separate."

Footnotes

• [a]. *Here "[and]" is supplied because the previous participle ("answered") has been translated as a finite verb
• [b]. *Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation