As I mentioned in my previous post on this matter, the purpose of this brief series is to reduce the judgmentalism of some Christian Pharisees – or at the very least to draw them out – and to comfort some who have suffered as a result of divorce. My first post sought to establish the fact of God’s marriage to the unified nation of Israel in preparation for discussing His subsequent divorce from the northern part of the then-divided kingdom.

The evidence of God’s divorce comes directly from the prophets Hosea and Jeremiah. The former declares,

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.” – Hos 2.1-4

Instone-Brewer explains that it is best to consider that God did not end nor seek to end His marriage to Israel until He was effectively forced to do so. He adds,

Hosea 2 makes it clear that Israel suffers divorce. The words that Yahweh speaks in verse 2, ‘she is not my wife and I am not her husband,’ are an ancient Near East divorce formula . . .

“This divorce is also referred to at Hos 9.15:

    ‘I began to hate them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more.’

The word ‘hate’ (shana) becomes a technical term for divorce when it is in a context such as this that also refers to ‘driving out of my house.’” – Divorce and Remarriage, pp 37-38

Through Jeremiah, God makes the same point very clearly:

Then the LORD said to me in the days of Josiah the king, ‘Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there. I thought, “After she has done all these things she will return to Me” – but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also.’” – Jer 3.6-8

Jeremiah is warning Judah, the southern half of the divided kingdom, to avoid the same fate as Israel: divorce. The phrase “given her a writ of divorce” was another technical, legal term indicating that a divorce had indeed taken place. Again, Instone-Brewer clarifies:

This reference to a divorce certificate in v. 8 may be an allusion to the verbal divorce formula in Hos 2.2, which became a divorce certificate by the act of Hosea writing it down.

“Jeremiah is keenly aware that a divorce has taken place because he sees this as an impediment to their reconciliation. In 3.1 he summarizes the law of Deut 24.1-4, which states that a wife cannot remarry her first husband after she has married someone else. Although Israel has not actually married someone else in the meantime, Jeremiah says that she has done far worse because she has had many lovers.” – D&R, p 41

A problem obviously exists, the solution to which is outside the scope of this post. What is to be noted here is that both Hosea and Jeremiah have no doubts about the fact that God has divorced the northern kingdom of Israel.

God was divorced. And God will remarry.


2 Cor 1:13