Did God divorce Israel?

This was explained by the Lord. Moses had suffered a man to put away his wife for any cause, as we see in Deut. 24:1, 3; but the Lord maintained God's original ordinance that what God had joined together, man had no right to put asunder, therefore a man must not put away his wife except for fornication, when she herself had broken the bond. Matt. 5:31-32; Matt. 19:3-9. A BILL OF DIVORCEMENT must be given to the woman, the drawing up of which, and having it witnessed, was some little check upon a man's hasty temper.

Divorce is used symbolically to express God's action in putting away Israel, who had been grossly unfaithful, and giving her a bill of divorcement. Isa. 50:1; Jer. 3:8.

This prophetic strain now ceases, for in Isaiah 50:1 we return to the existing state of the people, estranged from their God. This was not from God's side but from theirs. If He had issued a bill of divorcement against them, it would have been permanent and they would have been "cast away," (Rom. 11:1), as to which Paul says, "God forbid." The fact was that they had sold themselves into disaster by their many transgressions.

When Israel is thus converted and blessed with the Spirit the link of relationship between them and Jehovah will be fully restored. Israel has been an unfaithful wife to Jehovah, playing with many lovers, so that He has had to divorce her and put her away. But the time of her widowhood is drawing to a close, the Lo Ammi sentence will soon be reversed, and God will once more have pleasure in His people. In the past she did not know, in her blindness, who it was that really loved her, and gave her corn, and wine and oil, and decked her with jewels; but when grace operates in her heart, she will turn to Him in contrition and repentance, that she may be received to His heart once more. "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably to her (or, speak to her heart) … And it shall be at that day, says Jehovah, that thou shalt call Me Ishi (my husband); and shalt call Me no more Baali (my lord). I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name" (Hosea 2:14-17). The Book of Psalms and the Song of Solomon open up to us the dealings of God with Israel in that day; the one showing His work in their consciences and the other His work in their hearts. Israel shall be His in reality in that day of glory.

But the city is the "Bride, the Lamb's wife." In the Old Testament, the figure of marriage is used in a similar way. Israel was thus Jehovah's "married wife" (Isa. 54:1; Jer. 31:32), now divorced indeed for her unfaithfulness, but yet to return (Hosea 2), and be received and reinstated. Her Maker will then be once more her husband, and more than the old blessing be restored. In the forty-fifth psalm, Israel's King, Messiah, is the Bridegroom; the Song of Solomon is the mystic song of His espousals. Jerusalem thus bears His name: "This is the name whereby she shall be called: Jehovah our Righteousness" (Jer. 33:16, comp. Jer. 23:6). The land, too, shall be "married" (Isa. 62:4).

Following on this the action of Israel and Judah is contrasted. "The Lord said also to me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel has done? she is gone up upon every high mountain, and under every green tree, and there has played the harlot. And I said, after she had done all these things, Turn thou to me: but she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also. And it came to pass, through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks. And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to me with her whole heart, but feignedly, says the Lord" (Jer. 3:6-10). God would rather have reality even though our souls be in distance, than unreality, and professed nearness, when we are not in it. There was open backsliding and rebellion on the part of the ten tribes. But what did Judah do? "Judah feared not" (Jer. 3:8). "Judah has not turned to me with her whole heart, but feignedly, says the Lord" (Jer. 3:10). We get a great lesson there, beloved brethren. The Lord will not have anything but what is real. In King Josiah's day there had been a revival, as we have seen. You would think that they had really turned to the Lord, but it was simply the effect of Josiah's influence. It was only feigned. The Lord help us to avoid what He comments on here.

Now observe how beautifully He labours with these backsliding ten tribes to bring them back. "And the Lord said to me, The backsliding Israel has justified herself more than treacherous Judah. Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, says the Lord, and I will not. cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, says the Lord, and I will not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, says the Lord. Turn, O backsliding children, says the Lord, for I am married to you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion: and I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding" (Jer. 3:11-15). Backslider! He then called them, and bid them come back. Now He calls you back. You might ask, How can I get back? You say, I feel God has spoken to my soul through His Word, I am drinking at broken cisterns, how am I to get back? Listen. "Only acknowledge thine iniquity" (Jer. 3:13). There is only one way back, and what is it? Confession. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). How touchingly tender is the call. "Turn, O backsliding children, says the Lord, for I am married to you" (Jer. 3:14). There was no break of relationship on God's part. See, too, how He encourages the heart in Jer. 3:15. It is really lovely, beloved, the way in which the Lord seeks to recover and link the soul with Himself.

The Lord now put Himself, as it were, close to Judaea, but in contrast with it, outside it, in connection with it but now not within - a picture of His real place in dispensation as we have seen. But though now in principle without the camp, other glory and other revelations having come in, yet still His own mercy and patience unexhausted, the multitude come to Him there, for now they were to go out to Him, and, "as his custom was, he taught them." But this soon brought into question His relationship with the law of Moses. The Pharisees came to Him with this much-discussed question: Was it lawful to put away a wife for every cause? He refers them to their own authority: What says Moses? He permitted a divorce. To the lawgiver first - their own authority - but not their discussions, the question must be taken. But the Lord hereby assumes entirely a new position - a Judge of the Law itself, not condemning it, but accounting for its character in such provisions, and assigning it a temporary place. There could not be a more important principle in His controversy with them, nor one more consistent with, and flowing indeed from the place, which we have seen Him so distinctly assume, of the great moral principles of relationship with God. "Moses, for the hardness of your hearts, gave you this commandment, but from the beginning it was not so." What an account of their dispensation! Its stability and consequence! It hung on principles different from what God had instituted in blessing at the beginning, because of the hardness of their hearts now fully manifested. "Moses gave YOU this commandment, … but God made them male and female from the beginning of the creation." He was settling things now according to God's institution of them, not acquiescing in temporary arrangements of dispensation. Taking up God's institution at Creation into His own Person as Second Adam, the law entered; in this light God now returns in this place of Christ to His own thoughts; the hardness of man's heart had exhausted itself in evil, there was no more use in provision, patient provision for it, for the greatest provision, even Christ, had been rejected. God returns to pursue His own thoughts, dispensation being useless. I cannot but think Christ here treats the Jewish Remnant as His father and mother, and the Church as His wife. Thus, turning to this original creation purpose, one founded on deeper and more eternal things than anything in the law, for the dispensation of the Church is the manifestation by the Holy Ghost of that which the Church in the mind of God shall be when united to Christ, when its blessedness is complete. Hence the heavenly Jerusalem is looked at beyond the millennium; Rev. 21. The Church are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, which is never true of the Jewish people, though, in a general sense, married to Jehovah. It is not a real union, as the union of the Church with the risen Jesus. This is God's act and work, the plan of His new Creation as of His old. But so far from sanctioning Moses' law whoever does it commits adultery, and if a woman (which Moses' law never sanctioned) did it she committed adultery. It was from the nature of the bond of God. And we may add, never had He rejected and given up the Jewish people. They had rejected Him and committed adultery, but He had been ever and unfailingly faithful to them. If He gave them up, it was that they rejected and refused them - this as to their responsibility; He will show His faithfulness in grace much more. As Second Adam the Church was His spouse; as Jehovah they had rejected Him; and, Head of the new Creation, the Church was His Bride. This was now brought out by their rejection of Him. As Second Adam He was never Bridegroom of the Jewish company - as Jehovah He was. They were unfaithful to Him then, not He to them. As second Adam, now just brought out, He takes His own real place. They had now on their lips: "We have no king but Caesar." They were an adulterous generation. All Jewish pride, wisdom, and learning was set aside too. A child, and its simplicity, was what was wanting for, and to enter into the Kingdom of God; "of such is the Kingdom of God." If a man did not come to receive, if he did not come with the simplicity which found the truth there, he could not enter. Man was a mere sinner; good must be found elsewhere. All the learning, and wisdom, and information of Moses and discussions of his principles and meaning, was all just hindrance, unless it brought to the discovery of the utter ignorance, evil, and ruin in all this, because of sin. Then would a man the rather come as a child. Christ had to confound and confute, or reprove and set aside the doctors. He had only to receive the child; what did the child find there? What did he not, in the riches of God's own blessing in the Mediator, in whom all fulness dwelt, in grace and supply to need? This was clearly the way to come.

On the other hand, it is undeniable that the Jews, or Zion if you will, had the place of nearness to Jehovah which is represented under the figure of the marriage-tie, that she had been faithless and played the whore with many lovers (even the idols of the Gentiles), and that in consequence she was divorced, becoming a widow and desolate under the righteous dealing of God. Adultery was her sin, rather than fornication. No one in the least familiar with the prophets can have failed to notice this and more said of Israel. Then it was she became barren and did not bear. Praise is still silent for God in Zion; but the vow shall yet be performed to Him (Ps. 65:1); and the barren one shall sing and be no more barren but bear, astonished to find during those days of literal barrenness such an abundant offspring in the saints glorified on high, whom grace has been the while actively bringing in.

Nor is this all. "Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations; spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall possess nations, and make desolate cities to be inhabited" (vv. 2, 3). The land, the earth, must be filled with a suited seed; for Jehovah shall be king over all the earth; in that day shall there be one Jehovah and His name one. Yea, Jehovah deigns to be the husband of Zion, not now a mere testimony and display of responsibility of man under law, but in the efficacy of grace when glorying is no more in the flesh but in Jehovah. "Fear not, for thou shalt not be ashamed; neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. For thy Maker [is] thy husband: Jehovah of hosts [is] His name, and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall he be called. For Jehovah has called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when rejected, says thy God" (vv. 4 6).

Adultery, or idolatry — “with their idols have they committed adultery” (Ezek. 23:37) — is the special sin charged upon Israel of old as being the married wife of Jehovah (Jer. 3:14; Isa. 54:1). For this she was divorced. But in the purpose and grace of Jehovah Israel will be reinstated in her former blessed relation, one never again to be forfeited so long as sun and moon endure. Fornication, or illicit intercourse and connection with the guilty and apostate world, is the solemn indictment against Babylon — the corrupt and licentious woman who ensnares and captivates with her short-lived pleasures all within her influence — kings and people, high and low. The seductive glitter and meretricious display of this abandoned woman affect all classes, and morally ruin those over whom she casts her golden chains and who drink of her cup. Every right and true thought of Christ perishes where the woman’s blandishments are received and her smile courted.

(V. 1). The chapter opens with Jehovah reminding Israel that if they are dispersed and in captivity to the Gentiles, and their land is desolate, it is not that Jehovah has dealt lightly with them as a man might callously put away his wife, or as a heathen father might sell his child to pay his debts. It is through no lack of love on Jehovah’s part that they have been set aside. Their own sins have separated them from Jehovah and brought them into captivity.

But not only has God made man and his wife one, He also hates putting away. The prophet introduces this in a most solemn way: "For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith that He hateth putting away." If therefore His people are in communion with His own mind, they will do so also. And how abundantly, through the whole history of Israel as a nation, is it proved that the Lord does hate putting away! If He had not done so, Israel would long since, and many times, have been renounced. They broke His covenant again and again, thereby forfeiting all claims upon His favour and love; but He endured them with much long-suffering, for His gifts and calling are without repentance. And in the prophets He continually reminded them of His union with them, that He was married to them, and that, therefore, He could not cast them off. (See Isa. 50; Jer. 3:1-14, &c.) It was this same spirit He would have them show in their relationships, insteadof covering violence with their garment; and "therefore" the prophet repeats, closing up this part of his subject, "take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously."