Introduction
‘If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the LORD. Do not bring sin upon the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.’ Deuteronomy 24:1-4
Here we see that God through Moses was protecting the rights of women and if one thing is clear, it’s simply this, divorce, and remarrying were happening back in Moses’ day.
Moses gives an example of a woman who is married but her husband isn’t happy about something, we’ll look at what the word, ‘displeasing’ means later, so he divorces her. She then marries again and sadly, the same thing happens.
Notice there are two separate actions required here, ‘write her a certificate of divorce’ and ‘send her out’, Jeremiah 3:8 / Matthew 5:31-32 / Matthew 19:1-9 / Mark 10:1-12.
The Hebrew word for ‘put away’ is ‘shalach’ which means to send away, or out. And the Hebrew word for ‘certificate or bill or decree of divorce’ is ‘kriythuwth’ which means a cutting, of the matrimonial bond, that is, divorce. Clearly, there are two separate words used to describe two separate actions.
Just as there is a legal way to get married, there is also a legal way to get a divorce. Deuteronomy 24:1-4 / Jeremiah 3:8.
Any man who wants a divorce must give the woman ‘a certificate of divorce’ and then ‘send her away’, otherwise legally they are still married. They are still married because they haven’t got the legal paperwork, that is, the divorce papers to prove they’re legally divorced.
The word, ‘shalach’ ‘send away’ has a different meaning from the word, ‘kriythuwth’ ‘bill of divorcement.’ They don’t mean the same thing and both words certainly don’t mean divorce.
The word ‘divorce’ is a legal term, so, if it’s valid to translate ‘apoluo’ only as such, then we must admit that in Acts 19:41, for example, the entire assembly were married to the town clerk of Ephesus and then ‘divorced’ by him.
What about the exception clause? Jesus said anybody who ‘apoluo’, ‘puts away’ his wife, commits adultery, Matthew 5:32 / Matthew 19:9. Why?
Because he entered into a relationship with someone else but doesn’t have the legal right to do this. Jesus says that one can ‘put away’ his wife without the ‘apostasion’, without the ‘written certificate of divorce’, in the case of marital unfaithfulness.
Now, why would that be true? Why does ‘unchastity’, ‘sexual immorality’, N.I.V., ‘fornication’, K.J.V., become the ONLY reason that a man can ‘put away’ his wife without the legal, official written document of divorce? I believe that the answer to that is very simple.
But to understand it, there is something of vital importance that we must remember. What Jesus is saying is written to a society that was governed and controlled by the Law of Moses. What could be done and would be accepted practice in Jesus’ day could never be done in our own culture.
Now under the Law of Moses, the penalty for adultery, for marital unfaithfulness, was death Leviticus 20:10 / Deuteronomy 22:22-25. Now quite obviously, if a man ‘puts away’ his wife because of marital unfaithfulness, legally, technically, she is to die.
Therefore, you don’t need an ‘apostasion’, ‘certificate of divorce’. You don’t need a divorce, if your wife is stoned to death, just like if your wife were to die naturally, you would be free, 1 Corinthians 7:39.
So, whether that death comes by natural causes or whether that death comes by a violation of the Law of Moses and the penalty is death, the man is free and wouldn’t need the ‘apostasion’.
But Jesus says, ‘I tell you if anyone puts away his wife, commits adultery,’ Matthew 5:32 / Matthew 19:9, he puts her away without the ‘apostasion’, except for marital unfaithfulness of course. Because then the woman comes under the penalty of death.
Jesus is talking about the Law of Moses and the Pharisees said, what about Moses? Moses commanded it, Matthew 19:7-9. Jesus is saying if they’re going to enter into a relationship with somebody other than the person that God intended for them to marry. They already have a relationship with a person that God expects them to honour.
If their mate is unfaithful to them, if they break this vow, the intimacy of this covenant, then as far as the Law of Moses is concerned, technically they are dead. Therefore, they don’t need an ‘apostasion’ because they have dissolved the relationship by virtue of their action, they have violated the covenant.
If you think about it, dead people can’t marry, dead people don’t marry and here the guilty party, in the sight of God, is technically dead. That’s why God doesn’t give them the freedom to re-marry, it’s a part of their penalty for having transgressed the marital covenant.
In that culture, in that day, Jesus says to a man, ‘if their wife is unfaithful to them, technically, she is dead and you can re-marry in that case’. But, if she isn’t unfaithful to them, then they have no right to ‘put her away’. They’ve entered into a covenant with her, they’ve entered into a contract with her and they are to honour that.
If they ‘put her away’ without officially dissolving it, without going through legal channels, just like there must be legal channels to have a marriage, there must be legal channels to dissolve that marriage.
If they don’t go through the legal channels, if they don’t protect the rights of a woman, if they don’t see that her needs are met and give the legal document, ‘a certificate of divorce’, that proclaims to others that she is free of this marriage bond and is free to marry someone else if they just ‘put her away’, they’re committing adultery, that’s what He says in Matthew 19.
In Matthew 5:31-32, Jesus said when the man who marries the woman who was ‘put away’ and the woman who is ‘put away’ remarries, they commit adultery because they aren’t in a legal, official situation where they are free to contract new relationships.
They thought they could just go ahead and ‘put away’ their wives for any old reason, but Jesus says, if they’re going to ‘put away’ their wives, they better make it legal. They better give her a ‘certificate of divorce’.
Otherwise, whenever any of them marry again, they will be committing adultery and they know what the penalty is for that, stoning to death, Leviticus 20:10 / Deuteronomy 22:22-25.
The point is that the Jews had to do both, they had to give their wives the divorce certificate and then send them away. That’s what Moses said in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 and that’s what God did with Israel, Jeremiah 3:8.
In other words, just as there was a legal way to get married, there was also a legal way to get divorced. They were just sending their wives away without making it legal and this is what Jesus was emphasising. Jesus was doing what Moses was doing, protecting the right of vulnerable women.
Shammai And Hillel
Now just before Jesus was born, there were two rabbis living who became the most influential rabbis of the day, their names were Shammai and Hillel. Pretty much in the first century, in the time of Jesus, people lined up behind Shammai or Hillel on any given issue.
It’s kind of like in some churches today, you are either conservative or liberal. You’re either with Hillel or Shammai, one or the other. Who do you stand behind?
Fundamentally, what these Pharisees are asking Jesus is, ‘Okay, buddy, who do you line up behind?’ We can see how they put the people behind them because some will be with Shammai and some will be with Hillel?
Now Shammai was the conservative one. Let’s read a section from the Mishnah, the Mishnah is the collection of the oral traditions of the Jews, the oral law that you hear so much about.
A couple of hundred years after the time of Jesus, one of the rabbis realised that they were forgetting all this accumulation of oral knowledge, all the oral laws that the people were expected to keep. Because Jerusalem had been destroyed, in 70 A.D. and the centre of Judaism had been destroyed, so they began to write it down.
The School of Shammai says ‘a man may not divorce his wife unless he has found unchastity in her, for it is written, because he has found in her indecency in anything.’ Giteen, chapter 9, section 10.
And the School of Hillel says, ‘He may divorce her even if she spoils a dish for him for it is written that he has found indecency in anything’.
Rabbi Akebah says, ‘even if he found another fairer than she, for it is written if she has found no favour in his eyes.’
That is a discussion these rabbis had based on Deuteronomy 24:1-4, the point is that Hillel and Shammai had two opposing points of view. They also mentioned Rabbi Akebah, Akebah doesn’t live until after 100 A.D. so what he said doesn’t bear on the discussion here.
Rabbi Shammai says, ‘the only reason for divorce is if you find unchastity if there is marital unfaithfulness on behalf of your partner. If you find sexual infidelity on behalf of your marriage partner, then you may divorce.’
Hillel, on the other hand, said, ‘No, it says in Deuteronomy 24, if you find indecency in her in anything.’ You notice the text said, ‘she had prepared a dish that he didn’t like. Oh, dear, you scrambled these eggs, I wanted them fried, divorce her!
In other places, it’s said that Hillel said, ‘if she talked to a man in the street, that was a legitimate reason for divorcing her’. ‘If she turned around too quickly so that her legs became exposed, that was reason for divorcing her’. ‘If you didn’t like your in-laws, good enough reason, divorce her’.
Hillel has a much more generous interpretation of what the Old Testament said about the basis for divorce. So, people of the first century were lining up behind one or the other and the Pharisees came to test Jesus, to find out who will he stand with, Shammai or Hillel, and in so doing they could turn the people against him.
After all, the majority of the people followed Hillel who had the liberal interpretation that any old reason you could think up was an adequate reason for divorce.
Now they have already heard Jesus address the subject of divorce and remarriage before, in Matthew 5:31-32 in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus made a statement about it.
They have already heard about this, that’s why they can come up with this test question because they know Jesus has taken a conservative approach and they can turn the majority of the population against Him, remember, that is their motivation.
We need to see what it was that Jesus said back in the Sermon on the Mount that became the basis of what the Pharisees are going to use against Him or try to use against Him, Matthew 5:31-32. Which of those two rabbis does that sound like? Sounds like Shammai, doesn’t it?
Mistranslation
There is a great misunderstanding, the Pharisees misunderstood it and that misunderstanding continues even today. If you have the King James translation of the Bible, you will find that it’s had a mistranslation. In fact, its mistranslation is so bad that it leads to a misunderstanding of the passage altogether.
‘When a man has taken a wife and marries her and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her, THEN let him write her a bill of divorcement and give it in her hand and send her out of his house.’ Deuteronomy 24:1 K.J.V
Now the problem here comes in the fact that the word ‘then’ which occurs in Deuteronomy 24:1, in the King James translation, doesn’t occur in the Hebrew text.
The word ‘then’ draws a conclusion and it makes it sound like Moses is saying, ‘If a man marries and finds something that he doesn’t like about his wife, THEN let him divorce her’. But a point of fact is, that isn’t what Moses said, the word ‘then’ doesn’t occur in the text until Deuteronomy 24:4.
In the New International Version, the New American Standard Version and perhaps in others, it’s correctly translated in this passage. So, if you aren’t using the N.I.V. or the N.A.S.V. or a translation that has correctly translated this passage, read very carefully at these four verses together.
Moses is speaking to the people. In fact, this is the only place where he gives them insight regarding this situation of divorce and remarriage.
Now notice the King James Version has this saying, ‘If a man marries and if he becomes displeased with his wife, THEN let him give her a bill of divorcement’, but that’s not what Moses said. Deuteronomy 24:1-2 are written without any comment, without any editorialising, without any approval or disapproval.
Moses simply says, ‘If a man marries, if he becomes displeased with that wife, if he gives her a certificate of divorce (Moses didn’t say whether that was right or wrong, he simply said if he does that), if she goes out and marries husband number 2 and if husband number 2 divorces her or if husband number 2 dies, THEN, (here is the conclusion).
God said that woman cannot go back to her first husband, she cannot remarry to her original mate, it’s an impossibility. Moses goes on to say it is an abomination in the sight of God. So, Moses didn’t command a ‘bill of divorce’. He simply assumed that a ‘bill of divorce’ was being given.
If it was given, if the woman was legally divorced and she goes out and marries again, then she cannot under any circumstances ever go back to her first husband. God said that is morally objectionable to Him, it’s detestable in His sight.
But what does ‘uncleanness’ mean as the King James renders this? What does ‘indecency’ mean in verse 1 as the N.I.V. has it?
It’s the Hebrew word, ‘ervah’ and that’s really where the Pharisees got hung up, they tried to figure out, what is this ‘indecency’ that allows him to give her a bill of divorce and send her away so he can marry someone else.
Again, the debate between Hillel and Shammai comes in here. Shammai took a very conservative point of view, he believed it was fornication or adultery.
Hillel, on the other hand, took a much more liberal view, if he finds any uncleanness in her, any indecency in her, then he may put her away.
Hillel said that indecency could be something like talking to men in public, spinning around so that her legs could be seen when she was out in public.
Maybe cooking a meal that he didn’t like, maybe she scrambled his eggs when he wanted them fried, anything about her that she did, whether it was actions, appearance, attitude if it displeased the husband.
Hillel said that was enough justification to get rid of her. He said you can put her away, you can give her a bill of divorcement and send her out.
Well, what is this uncleanness? What did Moses have in mind?
I’m not exactly sure, and to be honest, nobody knows, nobody is positive, the Pharisees debated it and we debate it today. However, there is something very interesting back in Deuteronomy 23, just prior to what Moses said here in Deuteronomy 24, its interesting because we find this same Hebrew word used, ‘ervah’, Deuteronomy 23:12-14
The word ‘indecent’ is the same word that is used in Deuteronomy 24:1. In Deuteronomy 23:12-14 in context, it’s a reference to human excrement.
God says that He is going to come down and be walking in the camp of the Israelites and He doesn’t want to be stepping into that. When they go out, He wants them to dig a hole and relieve themselves and cover over it, He doesn’t want to see that indecency.
Moses says now says, ‘If a man marries a wife and he finds some indecency in her (something shameful, something vile, something corrupt, something that is a tremendous embarrassment to the husband) and he writes her a bill of divorcement and sends her away.’ Deuteronomy 24:1.
Even Moses doesn’t pretend that it’s a light-hearted matter, it’s something vilely immoral to the man, something terribly offensive. But may I say, with all confidence that it’s not adultery.
Shammai contended that it was adultery. I don’t believe it is for the simple reason that in Deuteronomy 22, two chapters earlier, God said that the penalty for adultery is death, not divorce, Deuteronomy 22:22-24.
If a husband found some indecency in his wife and God meant by that, indecency in adultery the solution wouldn’t be divorce under the Law of Moses, it would be death. This implies that indecency must be something short of adultery, something short of marital unfaithfulness. Whatever it is, it was something vile and terribly offensive to the husband.
Jesus said, ‘Moses allowed you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard’. Matthew 19:8. In other words, they wouldn’t consent to live with the same woman, they wouldn’t consent to honour God’s arrangement in the marital relationship.
It’s the hardness of their heart that kept God from forcing the ideal on them, so there is the ideal of permanency but then, there is the divorce which is ‘allowed’. God did tolerate them putting away their wives with a legal certificate of divorce and then marrying someone else.
But, Jesus said, ‘it was not this way from the beginning’, Matthew 19:8. God didn’t tell Adam if you don’t like Eve then give her a bill of divorcement.
From the beginning, God’s intent was for permanency, but as through sin men became corrupt, as men became hardened and rebellious, as they were determined not to honour the ways of God, God gave them the arrangement of divorce that is, He ‘allowed’ it, permitted it.
It wasn’t His pleasure and it didn’t please Him. It wasn’t what He really wanted, it wasn’t the ideal, but God did recognise divorce, He did allow it.
Jesus is dealing with the real problem, the problem of HOW they were ‘sending their wives away’. I believe it all had to do with the dowry, Genesis 29:18-27 / Genesis 34:11-12 / 1 Samuel 18:25 / Hosea 3:2.
In eastern countries, the bridegroom was required to pay the father of his betrothed a stipulated portion, in money or other valuables, proportioned to the rank and position of the family to which she belonged, this was the dowry. This is still practised in many countries even today.
The bride price and the dowry were two forms of payment made on the occasion of a wedding, first, there was the bride price and then there was the dowry, Exodus 21:10-11 / Exodus 22:16-17. Both of which were designed to support a woman and her children, should she be left widowed or divorced.
The Bible constantly commands God’s people to look after the vulnerable in society, especially widows and orphans, Isaiah 1:17 / Psalm 68:5 / James 1:27.
The bride price was more than money, it was about protecting the woman. If a widow or a divorced woman wanted to be independent, she needed this money to help her in her current circumstance, women didn’t want to be at the mercy of a husband who might or might not provide for her and her children.
The prospective groom gave the bride’s father a present, either a sum of money or its equivalent in goods, cattle, land, woven goods, work, etc, we see this in Genesis 29:15-30, where Jacob paid for Rachel’s sister Leah with seven years’ work.
We see this with David in 1 Samuel 18:25-27, where David paid for Saul’s daughter Michal with the grisly gift of one hundred Philistine foreskins. We see this in Judges 1:11-15, where Othniel conquered a town as payment for Achsah.
The amount of this bride price was geared to the status and wealth of the girl’s family. It was seen as compensation to the family for the loss of the girl, as well as the means of providing her with certain necessities. We don’t know what the Israelite custom was regarding the disposal of this money, but in Babylon, the goods belonged to the girl.
The father was given the interest or other income on it for life, but he wasn’t allowed to touch the capital, Genesis 31:14-16. The purpose of the bride price was to ensure the woman wasn’t being left unsupported if she was widowed. Without a dowry, they could end up destitute.
There are many passages in the Bible relating to dowries, but sadly, specific details are not given. However, in Babylon, a bride’s parents had to make a settlement on her which remained her property even though the husband received the interest from the capital and was entitled to invest the money in business. If a woman was later widowed, or divorced through no fault of her own, the capital reverted to her.
Pharaoh gave his daughter the city of Gezer as a marriage settlement when she married King Solomon, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel were each given a handmaid as a wedding gift from their parents, 1 Kings 9:16. The sum of money or goods was registered in the marriage contract.
If it was money that the husband wanted to invest, he contracted to repay his wife the full amount, plus one-third interest. If it was something that would depreciate, such as clothing or household goods, the husband only had to repay one-fifth of the original value.
Do you know why the Jews were ‘putting their wives away’ without giving them a ‘certificate of divorce’? They didn’t want to return the dowry; it was going to cost them, Exodus 21:10.
It was much easier to just abandon them, to put them away and allow them to go back to their home or fend for themselves and ignore them.
If a man ever gave his wife the ‘bill of divorce’, then he had some obligations to their wife, he had to return the dowry, he had to provide for his wife if they ‘sent them away’.
This was the Jews’ loophole, they ‘put them away’ without the official ‘divorce’. If there is a ‘legal divorce’, then the husband would be required to return the dowry, the sad news is, he probably would have spent it.
Whatever price he received from the father for the girl that he married would have to be returned. Jesus is going to imply this later, He basically is going to say, ‘husbands have to honour and respect the rights of their wives’.
It shocked them in a society where women had no rights because they didn’t have to think about this. Hence why the disciples were shocked at Jesus’ teaching, Matthew 19:10.
The ‘sending away’ without the ‘certificate of divorce’ was also liked by the wives because it didn’t require any court case, you didn’t need to prove negligence or any other embarrassing details in public and unless the wife had been unfaithful, she would get her marriage dowry back.
This was often enough to live on, or it would help her get a new husband. Remember Joseph didn’t want to go down the court road, to ‘divorce’ ‘apoluo’ ‘send away’, Mary ‘quietly’, that is, without a public hearing, Matthew 1:19.
Moses says if a man marries and his wife does something horrendously vile, offensive and embarrassing to him, and if he gives her a bill of divorce and sends her away and if she marries somebody else, then he never, never, never can remarry that woman again.
This begs the question, why do so many people insist on breaking up marriages when they discover that either the husband or wife has been married before and they insist that they should leave their new marriage and go back to their ex-husband or wife! Isn’t that still detestable in God’s sight!
No matter if he comes to forgive her and love her and wants to return to her, God says that it is detestable in His sight. Now that’s what is behind what the Pharisees had to say when they start talking about Moses commanding them to write a certificate of divorce.
‘If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married.’ Deuteronomy 24:5
Moses now speaks about how newlywed men are exempt for one year from fighting. This one year time was to be spent bringing happiness to his wife, Ephesians 5:25-32 / Colossians 3:19.
‘Do not take a pair of millstones—not even the upper one—as security for a debt, because that would be taking a person’s livelihood as security. If someone is caught kidnapping a fellow Israelite and treating or selling them as a slave, the kidnapper must die. You must purge the evil from among you. In cases of defiling skin diseases, be very careful to do exactly as the Levitical priests instruct you. You must follow carefully what I have commanded them. Remember what the LORD your God did to Miriam along the way after you came out of Egypt. When you make a loan of any kind to your neighbour, do not go into their house to get what is offered to you as a pledge. Stay outside and let the neighbour to whom you are making the loan bring the pledge out to you. If the neighbour is poor, do not go to sleep with their pledge in your possession. Return their cloak by sunset so that your neighbour may sleep in it. Then they will thank you, and it will be regarded as a righteous act in the sight of the LORD your God. Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether that worker is a fellow Israelite or a foreigner residing in one of your towns. Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it. Otherwise they may cry to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin. Parents are not to be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their parents; each will die for their own sin. Do not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless of justice or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there. That is why I command you to do this. When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this.’ Deuteronomy 24:6-22
Moses speaks here about those occasions when some of the Israelites were in need, and where they would need to borrow money from others using collateral, Exodus 22:25-26.
The ‘upper millstone’ wasn’t permitted to be used as collateral, as this was essential for everyday use in making food. In other words, if you take a person’s upper millstone, you’re taking away their ability to prepare food for their family.
The laws of God for Israel placed a great value on human life and so, kidnapping people and selling them as slaves was a crime punishable by death, Genesis 37:28 / Exodus 21:16.
Notice again, Israel is commanded to ‘purge the evil from among you’, Deuteronomy 13:5 / Deuteronomy 17:7 / Deuteronomy 17:12 / Deuteronomy 19:19 / Deuteronomy 21:21. This again, stresses the importance of purity and holiness among God’s people.
Those diagnosed with leprosy were to follow the strict instructions laid down by Moses. The term ‘leprosy’ refers to various kinds of skin disease, though it usually refers to the decaying of the flesh. Because some leprosy was contagious, the Israelites were to obey all laws in reference to it, Leviticus 13-14.
Moses often called on Israel to remember what happened when they failed to obey God’s commands, Deuteronomy 1:26, here, Moses calls on Israel to remember Miriam’s disobedient act against God’s sovereign choice of Moses as the people’s lawgiver, Numbers 12:1-10. Anyone who rebelled against God’s will was to be punished by being stoned to death.
If the time came for anyone who had borrowed money using their own clothes or covers as collateral to pay their debt, the debtor wasn’t allowed to barge into the man’s house and take the pledge, Exodus 22:25-27.
The borrower was to bring their pledge out to the man. The choice as to what was to be pledged was determined by the lender of the money, Proverbs 11:24.
Moses tells us if an outer garment for warmth was taken as collateral from someone who was poor, it couldn’t be kept overnight, Exodus 22:26-27 / Amos 2:8. It had to be returned because they need it to keep warm at night, this act would be classed as righteous, Deuteronomy 6:25.
Those who are wealthy and hire labourers for a day’s work weren’t to withhold their labourer’s pay. They were to pay them at the end of the day because the labourer desperately needs that pay to survive, Ezekiel 18:20 / James 5:4.
Notice parents aren’t to be put to death for their children, Deuteronomy 21:18-21, nor are children put to death for their parents, each will die for their own sin.
The family wouldn’t be punished for the sin of one member of the family, although there were times when this happened, Joshua 7:16-26 / Esther 9:13-14.
The person who sinned was the person held accountable and therefore, they had to pay the price for their sin, 2 Kings 14:6 / Jeremiah 31:29-30 / Ezekiel 18:19-20.
Although it would have been very easy to take advantage of a widow, who brought her much needed clothes as a pledge, Israel wasn’t permitted to do so. God always cares for those who are vulnerable, whether they are Israelites or not.
We see that the wealthy are not permitted to harvest the corners of their fields but rather leave these parts for the foreigners, widows, and fatherless, Leviticus 19:9-11 / Leviticus 23:22 / Ruth 2:2-5 / Ruth 2:15-16 / Ruth 2:23.
Notice how God wants justice to prevail for everyone, He wants justice for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, James 1:27. Israel wasn’t to think too highly of themselves, hence why Moses reminds them that they were once slaves in Egypt.
