Where the book of Genesis tells us about the creation, how God established and ordered the marriage relationship, and how marriage became corrupted after mankind’s fall into sin, the rest of the books of the Pentateuch reveal many details about how marriage was to be practiced among God’s chosen people, Israel. Observing some of these passages can help us see God’s will for marriage in some very specific circumstances, but we can also see how God’s original design is to be maintained in the rigors of everyday life in this world.
Exodus 20:17 – Among the Ten Commandments that Moses received directly from God on stone tablets, we find this warning against covetousness: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.” As we have already noted, the marriage bond was created to be permanent, and this is to be respected from the outside as well as within the marriage itself. Not only must we remain faithful to our own spouse, we must not entertain covetous desires toward our neighbor.
Exodus 34:16 – The Israelites were warned against intermarrying with the unbelieving people of the land for fear that it would lead to idolatry. Moses predicted that a Jewish father would “take of his daughters [the inhabitant of the land] for your sons, and his daughters play the harlot with their gods and make your sons play the harlot with their gods.” Because of the intimate nature of marriage and the closeness of the bond between them, a husband or wife will have a profound spiritual impact on their spouse. In ancient Israel, this often resulted in the men being enticed into idolatry by the pagan women they married. Although the New Testament suggests that a believing wife may also have a positive effect on her unbelieving husband (cf. 1 Cor. 7:16; 1 Peter 3:1), the danger of the negative influence ought to cause believers to seek out a believing spouse rather than risk being enticed into spiritual unfaithfulness by marrying an unbeliever.
Leviticus 18:6-23 – This passages explicitly prohibited the Israelites from marrying “anyone who is near of kin to him,” including their parents, siblings, in-laws, aunts and uncles, or any combination of the above. A couple of points should be made here. First, the expression “near of kin to him” is literally translated “flesh of his flesh,” and it speaks of a blood-relationship. However, it must also be noted that several of the prohibited unions in this chapter could only be described as “blood” if one recognizes that the union of marriage takes two individuals and bonds them together as one flesh. The prohibition of a man marrying his aunt is one such example. These laws would serve to make the children of Israel distinct from their neighboring nations who generally did not view incest as a capital offense, as well as protect them from the social and genetic dangers of inbreeding. This chapter also repeats the prohibition against adultery (v.20) and prohibits homosexuality and bestiality (v.22-23). These emphasize the seriousness of the one flesh bond that God intended for marriage between a man and his wife. This bond is formed by their sexual union, but such a bond exists between any two people who engage in sexual relations (1 Cor. 6:16), therefore it must be limited and protected.
Leviticus 21:7,13-15 – In this chapter we find several specific regulations concerning the priests in Israel which include this statement: “They shall not take a wife who is a harlot or a defiled woman, nor shall they take a woman divorced from her husband; for the priest is holy to his God” (v.7). For the priests of the Lord, their marriage was a symbol of their unique devotion to God and therefore they were not allowed to marry a woman who had a history of sexual immorality, this extended even to a woman who had been divorced. This is the first mention of divorce in the Bible, the first indication that God’s plan for marriage to be a life-long bond was not followed by sinful mankind. Clearly divorce is seen as such a breach of the divine will for marriage that a woman who has been put away by her husband is not eligible to be married to a priest, for her reputation for purity and chastity is called into question. For the high priest, the regulations for marriage are even stricter. “A widow or a divorced woman or a defiled woman or a harlot – these shall not marry; but he shall take a virgin of his own people as wife.” These restrictions were put in place in order to ensure that the priestly line remained pure.
Clearly, the ideal of one man and one woman united by God for life was not maintained, even among the Israelite people. For this reason, the Lord gave them specific instructions which illustrate the importance of God’s design for marriage, and while we may not live under the direct rule of the Mosaic law today, the principles of faithfulness, commitment, and the one-flesh bond of marriage apply just as much to us. The standard of marital purity for the priests also reminds us that God holds those who are in positions of spiritual leadership to a higher standard of obedience in these areas. Still, there is more to be said concerning marriage from the writings of Moses, and we will examine those texts next.