Understanding Deuteronomy 24:1-4, Part I: Textual Considerations

As Christians under the new covenant mediated by Christ Jesus our Lord, we find ourselves rarely involved with significant doctrinal disputes regarding Old Testament passages, and especially passages in the Law of Moses itself. In the current heat of the marriage, divorce, and remarriage controversy that has gripped the church, however, Deuteronomy 24:1-4 has become a passage of significant contention because of its use in Matthew 19:3-9:

And there came unto him Pharisees, trying him, and saying, "Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?"
And he answered and said, "Have ye not read, that he who made them from the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh?' So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."
They say unto him, "Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorcement, and to put her away?"
He saith unto them, "Moses for your hardness of heart suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it hath not been so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that marrieth her when she is put away committeth adultery."

The question of the Pharisees in verse 7 refers directly back to Deuteronomy 24:1-4, and if we are going to be able to properly understand the reason for the question of the Pharisees and Jesus' response to it, we must first understand Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Let us now begin our examination of this text.

As I have studied the passage in the original languages of the Bible-- Hebrew and Greek, along with the witnesses of Latin and Syriac, it became evident that before we could properly analyze the message and apply it to Matthew 19, we must first reach some form of consensus on the text itself and understand what the text is trying to tell us. Let us examine these witnesses.