The CBE Scroll

Comment by JLP

September 6, 2007 @ 4:07 pm

As a background to this blog, you may enjoy reading the following: ‘Is the TNIV Good News?’

This is actually a series of twenty-three short articles that he wrote on the issue. It can take a couple of hours to read it in it’s entirety, but is well worth the time.

These articles give insight into how the TNIV chose when to use gender inclusive language. Since it’s the TNIV version that translates ‘man’ as ‘people’ in Malachi 2:16, I thought it was pertinent to this discussion. Should the word translated ‘man’ in both the NIV and ESV have been translated ‘people’ in the TNIV? I don’t know, but I’m hoping those of you with a background in Hebrew can tell us.

Comment by Melanie

September 6, 2007 @ 4:27 pm

I use the Holman Christian Standard Version, and this is what it states beginning at the end of verse 15:

‘So watch yourselves carefully, and do not act treacherously against the wife of your youth. “If he hates and divorces his wife,” says the Lord God of Israel, “he covers his garment with injustice…”

I would read this to mean that a man must not act treacherously against his wife - abusively or neglectfully, in ways that would lead to divorce or separation of the one flesh union that God has instituted. This God hates. If a man behaves in a way that causes his wife to leave him, this shame will mark him for life - like wearing garments that display his guilt.

I think this could also refer to men who, though not abusive, do not take their responsibilities to provide for and protect their families seriously. This could be simply laziness or go as far as abandonment. Leaving his wife and children to struggle to survive is also treacherous, selfish behavior.

Should a man repent in the future (of the abuse or neglect which led to his divorce), which is possible, he would still be disqualified from ministry and leadership positions according to Timothy and Titus. And so, his past is always before him, not to mention the legacy he has left with his wife and children.

Comment by JLP

September 6, 2007 @ 5:51 pm

Thanks for your thoughts, Melanie (see comment 66355). Someplace I heard the Hebrew term ‘garment’ was slang for a wife because a wife covered her husband by giving him warmth. I’m wondering if I understood what I heard correctly or if my brain is malfunctioning.

Comment by Mary

September 6, 2007 @ 5:58 pm

As I understand it, it’s a poetic parallelism. The second part carries a very similar meaning to the first. Therefore, the sundering/parting (divorce) is equated with the violence (covering/clothing self with violence). In other words, God hates the metaphorical violence of divorce, which rips apart the two-as-one that is marriage, just as God hates overt violence, which is similarly selfish and evil behavior.

I think we can see it today. A spouse who is violent toward the other spouse has sundered the marriage. A spouse who abandons the other has done violence to the relationship. Too many people equate divorce to the clean, bloodless decree, the biblical rough equivalent of which was the ‘certificate of divorce.’ But divorce is the actual ‘putting asunder,’ whatever causes that. Just as the biblical certificate made it legal/official, so does the modern divorce decree. Only the couple can marry each other, and only the couple can divorce each other. No minister or judge, or any papers which they can sign, can do more than make either a marriage or divorce legal in the eyes of the law and/or the church.

Comment by JLP

September 6, 2007 @ 7:42 pm

So we can say that ‘garment’ does not refer to wife. But, should the reference be to a ‘man’ as the NIV and ESV say, or ‘he’ as the Holman says, or to ‘people’ as the TNIV says?

Comment by Melanie

September 6, 2007 @ 8:48 pm

Considering that the KJV as well as the NASB also translate in the masculine, I would side with the majority on that. It would seem the true translation experts have spoken. Also, given the context of not treating one’s wife treacherously, I would say that by default it would have to be the masculine. Unless anyone is suggesting that gay marriage is permissible, biblically speaking?

Comment by Liz

September 7, 2007 @ 3:13 am

All the finer points aside, these verses, in context, explain what it was that God hated about the divorce which was happening. The men in this case were leaving their original wives with no good reason and taking up with new, preferred ones, and that is what God said he hated - as far as I can see.

Comment by LMcC

September 7, 2007 @ 9:25 am

Melanie (see comment 66414), CBE does not endorse gay marriage.

That said, since you hold the KJV and NASB translations higher than the others, are you from BJU, Cedarville, or Pillsbury by any chance?

Comment by PS

September 7, 2007 @ 9:33 am

Just goes to show that one can hold the Bible in high esteem, even the ‘infallible Word of God’ and still not believe in a ‘literal reading’ because of the copies and translations, not to mention the interpretations, that are subject to our human fallibilities and our cultural frame of reference.

Comment by HKH

September 13, 2007 @ 8:50 am

Is this really all everybody has to say on this topic? I thought it would go on more than this. I’ve so enjoyed everyone’s comments. I’d be saying more myself with Scriptures and such if things weren’t so busy at my house, but I don’t have time to look things up in the Bible, so I’ll just tell a little story.

Early on in my walk with the Lord, while things were still brand new, I met a woman named Cheryl. She was a smoking, drinking baby boomer who liked to party. Because I so loved the Lord and knew that everyone needed him in their lives just like I needed him in mine, I looked for opportunities to share. I don’t remember how I started the conversation with Cheryl or how we got around to it, but I will never forget her words. She told me that she had tried God and religion once, but she was done with it because her husband tried to ‘…beat the fear of God into me with a folding chair.’

This burst my little Christian bubble and made me face reality. Oh yes, I still love the Lord. I’ve been a Christian for over twenty-five years, but my heart is broken for all the walking wounded. My heart is broken over the doors of heaven being shut up to so many by abuse, oppression, and a twisted view of Scripture. As I read the Word, I see the freedom and deliverance that God has for those who would turn to him. Then, as I look at the wounded, I see the huge rock walls that they have built up around their hearts to protect them against the pain caused by those who should have been defending them.

Women are dying because people believe that if a woman submits enough, then the marriage can be saved. This belief is dangerous, and so is sending a woman back to her abuser. I am not saying that submission should not be a part of marriage. But, there is a line when it is nowhere near submission anymore, and it becomes oppression, and the sooner that people realize this, the better things will be for all of us in the church.

It is my hope that the Cheryls in this world can be reached and that the church does what she can to stop abusing and spitting out more walking wounded.

Comment by Lainie

September 13, 2007 @ 6:48 pm

A few years back, I met a young man who had been a member of a non-Christian sect. He told me that if a woman in that group was being beaten by her husband, that man had better hope that the police got to him first, because otherwise a group of men from the group would pay him a visit and give him a good beating.

Now I am not proposing that churchmen go around beating up those who beat their spouses. But, I find it interesting (and sad) that some non-Christians take spousal abuse so seriously, while many Christians (even ‘liberal’ Christians) are willing to leave an abused spouse to manage on their own.

Comment by Denise

September 14, 2007 @ 7:16 pm

Something I didn’t mention in my previous comment (see comment 66865) is that I went through a very ugly divorce from my abusive husband seven years ago. Although my denomination (Presbyterian Church of America (PCA)) is theologically very conservative, our elders stood by me when my doctor asserted that I could not move with my husband when he transferred from this area. He had chosen to return to an area where I had been very ill a few years before and then filed for divorce when I refused to follow him.

My mother, who is not a believer, was certain that the church would back my husband strictly due to gender. The care my children and I have received from our congregation has been a powerful witness to her. She is much more open to the Gospel than she has ever been.

Throughout this ordeal, I continued to serve in various leadership roles. Several other women associated with my church have also received wonderful support after separating from abusive husbands. I suspect that much depends upon the pastor, although I have been told that the PCA views abuse and abandonment as valid reasons for divorce. I now have a quiet ministry working with those who are dealing with abuse and its after-effects.

A few excellent books I can recommend are Angry Men and the Women Who Love Them by Paul Hegstrom and Refuge by Detective Sgt. Donald Stewart.

Comment by JLP

September 15, 2007 @ 6:01 am

Denise (see comment 67694), I’m glad your church gave you the support you needed. It’s good to hear about positive things like this.

Comment by Jackie

September 23, 2007 @ 3:34 pm

I know this is getting a bit off the main point of the original posting, but this is my take:
Malachi 2 and Jeremiah 3 both mention divorce in the context of Israel and Judah breaking faith with God by repeatedly engaging in witchcraft via sacrificing to idols (interacting with demonic realm). In Jeremiah 3:8 God mentions he wrote the certificate of divorce, where he was legally acknowledging the sundering/severing or divorce already done by Israel of their relationship through her sin. The severing done to the marriage by the offending party is the divorce that God hates, not the legal declaration of it that he himself had done when he wrote the certificate against Israel.

Any abuse in a human marriage is a form of manipulation and control. Manipulation and control are forms of ‘white witchcraft’ and if it goes on unrepented of and without the abuser getting significant help in overcoming this behavior, it causes a severing to the point of divorce to occur in a relationship - even if that divorce isn’t acknowledged by a certificate of legal divorce. Parents can drive their children away by manipulation and control, but young adults turning eighteen aren’t told they are unfit for ministry because of making educational or career choices that put more distance between them and their controlling parent(s).

Any violence works to sever relationships; any women counseled to place herself in a vulnerable position spiritually, emotionally, mentally, financially, legally, and/or physically by someone using Scripture as the justification has been further abused spiritually by that counselor.

I interpret the whole message of the Bible as well as many verses dealing with the Christian responsibility to pursue love in relationships as saying that beating another person is unacceptable to God.

Comment by Gwen

December 14, 2007 @ 11:01 pm

I met a Jewish believer in Jesus who told me that in this verse it refers to a husband putting out the wife without the formal legal document of divorce thus trapping, unable to move on with life or remarry. I don’t know how to look this up. Maybe one of you scholars can compare the original word ‘divorce’ here and see if you can find some differences.

What I do know is that this verse has held many hostage in unhealthy marriages. Marriage is to be honored, but we must be careful not to make an idol of the institution.

Comment by John

June 17, 2008 @ 7:21 pm

Mal 2.16 is a difficult text to translate. Covering a woman with a garment is a reference to having sexual relations with her in marriage, which was one of the marriage vows in ancient Jewish marriage contracts, along with food and clothing - as in Exodus 21.10 rights of freedom/divorce - neglect of food, clothing and “marital rights”.

If you look at the NIV alternative rendering:

“I hate a man’s covering his wife with violence as well as with his garment”

It sounds like God’s hates someone who both mistreats a wife and then has sex with her. Violence and then sex (mostly rape)is often the cycle in abusive marriages, but that is just a guess. Fortunately the grounds of divorce in Deut 24.1, and Exodus 21.10 cover divorce in adulterous, neglectful & amp; abusive circumstances.

see divorce-remarriage for more info.