And the Pharisees came up to Him, and testing Him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
The Pharisees’ question arose not from a desire to know the truth, but from an intention to test Him. They wanted to draw the Lord into a disputed matter, because in their time there were differing opinions about divorce. Their aim could have been either to set Him against the law of Moses, or to cause the people to stumble because of His word. But Christ turns people’s crafty questions into an occasion for the revelation of the truth. He does not remain on the level of human disputes, but returns to God’s original will. Thus this question becomes an occasion for the Lord to reveal the holiness of marriage and the danger of the hardness of the human heart.