In
the house, his disciples asked him again about the same matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife, and marries another, commits adultery against her. If a woman herself divorces her husband, and marries another, she commits adultery.”
Mark 10:10-12
Mark 10 [5.] But Jesus said to them, “For your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this cause a man will leave his father and mother, and will join to his wife, and the two will become one flesh, so that they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”
Mark 10 [10.] In the house, his disciples asked him again about the same matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife, and marries another, commits adultery against her. If a woman herself divorces her husband, and marries another, she commits adultery.”
Mark 10 [13.] They were bringing to him little children, that he should touch them, but the disciples rebuked those who were bringing them. But when Jesus saw it, he was moved with indignation, and said to them, “Allow the little children to come to me! Don’t forbid them, for God’s Kingdom belongs to such as these. Most certainly I tell you, whoever will not receive God’s Kingdom like a little child, he will in no way enter into it.” He took them in his arms, and blessed them, laying his hands on them.
Meaning:
Jesus had just answered the Pharisees in public. Moses allowed divorce because of hard hearts, but from the beginning God made them male and female and joined husband and wife as one flesh, so “what therefore God has joined together, let no man separate” (Mark 10:6-9). Later, away from the crowd, the disciples raise the subject again. Their question shows how startling the answer was. In their world divorce was common and easy for a man, and the teachers argued only about the reasons that made it acceptable. Jesus now spells out what his teaching means in practice, and his words were as surprising then as they are demanding now.
- “In the house”
Mark often shows Jesus teaching the crowds in public and then explaining more fully to his disciples in private. “Privately to his own disciples he explained everything” (Mark 4:34). In the same way, after a public debate about what makes a person unclean, “he had entered into a house away from the multitude” and his disciples asked him about it (Mark 7:17). The house was a place for honest questions. Disciples who do not understand, or who find a teaching hard, are welcome to come to Jesus and ask again.
- “Commits adultery against her”
The first saying contains something new. In the law of Moses adultery was a sin against another man’s marriage; a husband who sent his wife away with a certificate and married someone else was not thought to have wronged her. Jesus says the opposite. The man who discards his wife to marry another “commits adultery against her”. In God’s eyes the first marriage still stands, and the wife is a person who can be wronged, not property to be exchanged. The seventh commandment, “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14), cannot be avoided simply by filling out the proper paperwork first. Jesus went even further elsewhere, teaching that adultery begins in the heart (Matthew 5:28).
- “If a woman herself divorces her husband”
Under Jewish custom a wife could not normally divorce her husband, but under Greek and Roman law she could. Mark’s Gospel was written for readers living in that wider world, and Jesus’ words apply the same standard to women as to men. The saying also had a sharp edge close to home. Herodias had left her first husband, Herod’s brother Philip, to marry Herod Antipas, and John the Baptizer had been imprisoned for saying, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife” (Mark 6:18). Jesus did not soften John’s message, even in Herod’s territory.
- The wider teaching of Scripture
Matthew’s account of the same conversation includes an exception: “whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery” (Matthew 19:9). Paul repeats the Lord’s command to married believers, adding that a wife who has left should “remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband” (1 Corinthians 7:10-11). Read together, these passages show that Jesus was not laying down a new legal procedure but calling his followers back to the lifelong faithfulness God intended from the start, while recognising that sin can break a marriage.
The Significance of Mark 10:10-12
- Faithfulness protects the vulnerable
In Jesus’ day the person most harmed by easy divorce was usually the wife, who could be sent away with little means of support. By calling it adultery “against her”, Jesus took the side of the one who was discarded. Faithfulness in marriage is not only obedience to a rule but love and justice towards a real person.
- Bring the hard questions to Jesus
The disciples did not pretend to understand. They asked. Believers facing painful questions about marriage, separation or remarriage should bring them honestly to Christ, to Scripture and to wise counsel in the church, rather than settle for the easy answers of the surrounding culture.
- There is mercy for the fallen
Jesus’ high standard exposes everyone’s failure in some way, but it is not his last word. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Those who have failed in marriage can find forgiveness and a new beginning in him.
Cross-References:
Matthew 19:9: "I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries her when she is divorced commits adultery." Matthew’s fuller account of the same teaching.
1 Corinthians 7:10-11: "But to the married I command—not I, but the Lord—that the wife not leave her husband (but if she departs, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband not leave his wife." Paul passes on the Lord’s command to the church.
Exodus 20:14: "You shall not commit adultery." The commandment Jesus applies to divorce and remarriage.
Mark 6:18: "For John said to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”" The same truth spoken by John the Baptizer at the cost of his life.
Conclusion: In the privacy of the house, the disciples asked Jesus again about divorce. He told them plainly that whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and that the same is true of a woman who divorces her husband. With these words Jesus gave the wife equal dignity, closed the loophole of an easy certificate and called both men and women to lifelong faithfulness, while the rest of Scripture shows that God’s mercy reaches those who have fallen short.
PIB Scriptures are derived from the World English Bible