Bible Geek Word Nerd - Jeremiah 3 - Divorce & Defilement

Walking through Jeremiah

March 14, 2023

 

We have been reading through the Prophet Jeremiah and pausing on certain Hebrew words or phrases that catch our attention along the way.  

 

Today, our journey takes us to chapter three of the prophet, where his words excoriate his brethren for their betrayal of the LORD. It begins with a shocking word picture:

 

“‘If a man DIVORCES his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, should he return to her again? Would not the land be COMPLETELY DEFILED? But you have lived as a PROSTITUTE with many LOVERS – would you now return to me?’ declares the LORD.”

Jeremiah 3:1 (the upper case words give us our words)

 

While English has (depending on your source) as many as 1 million words, Hebrew is a much narrower language. The Bible Jesus memorized has almost 8700 words, about 1500 occurring only once (linguists call these HAPAX LEGOMENON). Consequently, Hebrew words often pull double and triple duty when translated into languages with broader vocabularies, such as English. (Side note: this is why thinking of any translation as “literal” is ridiculous. Every Hebrew term conveys a meaning which translators attempt to understand in their native languages. But there are very, very few one-for-one exchanges.)

 

None of the 8700 words in the Text means exclusively “divorce”. Hebrew offers a variety of words that it uses to express the concept, one of which is in our verse in question. Here, the term is SHALACH (שָׁלַח), a verb which means “to send” (as in, to send one’s wife away).

 

As a verb, SHALACH is used almost 850 times in the Text, appearing first in Genesis 3:22, which gives us, “And the LORD God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed TO REACH OUT his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’” In Genesis 8, Noah SENDS OUT a raven, two doves, and his hand. In Genesis 19, G-d SENDS the Angels to destroy Sodom. And its final use is in the triumphant promise of Malachi 3:1, “I WILL SEND my messenger, who will prepare the way before me.”

 

In this parable, who is doing the sending? And who is the sent? G-d is the one who has sent away Israel, and she has married someone else: foreign gods of their neighbors. And in doing this, Israel has polluted – or defiled, as the NIV has it – the land.

 

The word behind “completely defiled” in our verse is CHANEPH (חָנֵף). In its various forms, CHANEPH is used 26 times in the Text, with very few shades of meaning apart from “to be polluted or profane". In Numbers 35:33, its first use, we read, “Do not POLLUTE the land where you are. Bloodshed POLLUTES the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.” Its final use in the Text is Micah 4:11, “But now many nations are gathered against you. They say, ‘Let her be defiled, let our eyes gloat over Zion!’”

 

In Jeremiah 3:1, CHANAPH is repeated to emphasize it. So “completely defiled” is CHANAPH CHANAPH. Israel’s harlotry is doubly defiling, you might say.

 

Why you might ask, does the divorce-and-remarriage scenario lead to double defilement? The Torah forbids it, first of all. Deuteronomy 24:1-4 tells the reader: 

 

“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 (literally, a cutting-off), 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.”

 

Clearly, this divorce-remarriage scenario is defiling because it is detestable to the LORD. But WHY is it detestable to God? We do not know for certain. Jewish and Christian interpreters offer different ways to read this MITSVAH. But one thing is clear, Jeremiah expects his audience to be familiar with Deuteronomy 24. And he’s reminding them that Israel’s harlotry with her many foreign lovers precludes her from ever returning to her one, true G-d again.

 

Tomorrow, we will pick up with the remaining two words in our verse: “prositute” and “lovers”.