(Note: This post is prompted by numerous accounts of pain and suffering of Christians due to an inadequate understanding of the nature of divorce in the Bible. My hope is that it would cause the Pharisees among us to stop treating divorced believers as bastard children of God and, in addition, would provide some comfort for those who carry unnecessary guilt because of divorce.)

Those of us quick to adduce Mal 2.16a – “‘For I hate divorce,’ says the LORD, the God of Israel” – would do well to accept an inescapable fact of the Bible: God Himself was divorced. Here, in context, is the aforementioned proof-text used by many to condemn and bludgeon those who are considering, in the process of, or dealing with the aftermath of being divorced:

Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the LORD which He loves and has married the daughter of a foreign god. As for the man who does this, may the LORD cut off from the tents of Jacob everyone who awakes and answers, or who presents an offering to the LORD of hosts.

“This is another thing you do: you cover the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping and with groaning, because He no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. Yet you say, ‘For what reason?’ Because the LORD has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.

“But not one has done so who has a remnant of the Spirit. And what did that one do while he was seeking a godly offspring? Take heed then to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of your youth. ’For I hate divorce,’ says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘and him who covers his garment with wrong,’ says the LORD of hosts. ‘So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously.’” – Mal 2.11-16

Understanding God’s divorce first requires an understanding of God’s marriage. Many scholars regard the covenant God entered into with the nation of Israel to be His marriage. This may be deduced from passages such as the following:

‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,’ declares the LORD.” – Jer 31.31-32

God refers to Himself as a husband to the nation of Israel, the marriage having taken place long before the splitting of the nation into two, i.e., Israel and Judah. The divine marriage of God and Israel is also reflected and displayed in Hosea’s life:

The word of the LORD which came to Hosea the son of Beeri, during the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

“When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, ‘Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry; for the land commits flagrant harlotry, forsaking the LORD.’ So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. And the LORD said to him, ‘Name him Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will punish the house of Jehu for the bloodshed of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. ‘On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.’

“Then she conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. And the LORD said to him, ‘Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel, that I would ever forgive them. But I will have compassion on the house of Judah and deliver them by the LORD their God, and will not deliver them by bow, sword, battle, horses or horsemen.’

“When she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and gave birth to a son. And the LORD said, ‘Name him Lo-ammi, for you are not My people and I am not your God. Yet the number of the sons of Israel will be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered; and in the place where it is said to them, “You are not My people,” it will be said to them, “You are the sons of the living God.”

“And the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel will be gathered together, And they will appoint for themselves one leader, and they will go up from the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel. Say to your brothers, ‘Ammi,’ and to your sisters, ‘Ruhamah.’

“‘Contend with your mother, contend, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband; And let her put away her harlotry from her face and her adultery from between her breasts, or I will strip her naked and expose her as on the day when she was born. I will also make her like a wilderness, make her like desert land and slay her with thirst. Also, I will have no compassion on her children, because they are children of harlotry. For their mother has played the harlot; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, “I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”

“‘Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths. She will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them; and she will seek them, but will not find them. Then she will say, “I will go back to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now!”’” – Hos 1.1-2.7

Selected phrases and terms demonstrate the reality of God’s marriage to the unified nation of Israel. Most of them are negative in this passage, describing the betrayal of the marital covenant, but nevertheless give evidence of a marriage. God declares, through Hosea, that the northern kingdom of Israel has ended the marriage, prompting God to say that they are no longer His people and He is not their God. He employs words such as adultery to demonstrate that Israel has been an unfaithful wife to Him, the “first husband” that she had. When He states the fact that she is no longer His wife and He is no longer her husband, it leads to the conclusion that Israel previously had been His wife and God had been her husband.

It is difficult to conclude anything other than that God was married to the nation of Israel. It will soon be shown that it is no less difficult to conclude anything other than the fact that God divorced His idolatrous, adulterous, unfaithful wife.

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2 Cor 1:13