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Today's Verse Analysis

Matthew 19:9 And I say to you, Whoever shall put away his wife...

Teaching about marriage, about divorce.

Some deep context: ancient civilizations took the vows of marriage very seriously. Marriage was not a piece of paper, but a serious matter of social ties and individual survival. Marriages were like alliances tying families together for mutual support. Adultery, much less divorce, was considered a serious failure of character. In The Republic, Plato says that someone who commits adultery cannot be trusted in other matters. In Aristophane, adultery is equated with treason and treachery. While we think of the word as only applying to cheating in marriage, in Greek and Hebrew, it was a metaphor for cheating God and others.

In virtually every ancient culture going back to the Code of Hammurabi 1,800 years before Jesus, adultery was the equivalent of murder, punishable by death. Infidelity was a death-sentence both for men and women, though it was more often enforced against women.

Spoken to
audience

Matthew 19:9 λέγω δὲ ὑμῖν ὅτι ὃς ἂν ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ μὴ ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην μοιχᾶται.

KJV Verse

Matthew 19:9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

NIV Verse:

Matthew 19:9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.

 

What His Listeners Heard:

I, however, say to you that who when he divorces that woman of his, not in the case of prostitution, and marries another defiles himself.

Lost In Translation:

Jesus tightens up the earlier version (Matthew 5:32), which has more words but makes the same point. This is a "punchier" version of the same line. Getting to the point, adultery, much quicker. Here the man who remarries another woman is defiled, or because the verb could also be the middle voice, "defiles himself." The phrase "except that it be for" is two words that mean "not upon" that, together, have the sense of "not in the case of."

The uncommon word here means "fornication" for a man and "prostitution" for a woman, but the sense is sexual immorality in general. Jesus only uses this word three times.

 

 

KJV w/Translation Issues :

And(WW) I say unto you, Whosoever (MW) shall(CW) put(WW) away his (MW) wife, except(WW) it be(IW) for(WW) fornication, and shall(CW) marry another, committeth adultery: [and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery(OS)].

KJV List (See full page for word-by-word analysis):
For analysis of each word of original Greek and biblical verses, click here.

Constantly Updated

My analysis standards and methods are constantly improving. New information on each verse is provided as articles are updated. It requires approximately two years for me to work through updating each of Jesus's verses.

What Jesus's Listeners Heard

The everyday meanings of the Greek words Jesus used were different than the definitions they have been given over time in biblical translation. The word translations here are based upon documents of his time such as the Greek Septuagint, not ideas unknown in his time.

About this Site

See what Jesus said in Greek and see how his words are changed in English translation. My goal is to translate Jesus's words as they were heard when he taught, not the way they are interpreted today. The work here resurrects the humor and cleverness of Jesus's words lost in translation.

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