What Does Deuteronomy 24:3 Mean?
And if the next husband hates her, and writes her a writ of cutting away, places it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; or if the next husband dies, he who took her to himself as a wife.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife;THE KEY
The bill is a “document of cutting off,” and the verse completes that written severance by sending her out of the house.
THE MEANING
The verse names the second marriage’s ending as something made visible: the husband writes a document of severance, places it in her hand, and sends her from his house; the other stated ending is his death. The document, hand, and departure hold separation in public and material form.
THE ROOT
סֵפֶר כְּרִיתֻת
sefer keritut
GROWS FROM
כרת
Cut; cut off; sever.
“writ of cutting away” in this verse is sefer keritut. The Hebrew phrase is sefer keritut, a document of cutting off; the English “bill of divorcement” gives its function while the root carries the severance inside the phrase. The same cut-word can describe cutting a covenant, so this document marks an enacted, formal break rather than simply naming a feeling.
ALSO GROWS
keritut: Cutting off; severance.
כְּרִיתֻת
This is the Hebrew noun in the document’s name, making the separation itself part of what the bill says.
karat: To cut; to cut off.
כָּרַת
The verb carries the decisive act of severing that the written document records.
karat berit: To cut a covenant.
כָּרַת בְּרִית
The same cut-word can mark a covenant as formally bound; here keritut turns that cut-language toward a formal ending.
וְשִׁלְּחָהּ
veshilleḥah
GROWS FROM
שלח
Send; send forth; release; let go.
“sends her out of his house” in this verse is veshilleḥah. Shalach holds sending forth and release together: she is sent out from the house, and related forms name a sending or one who is sent. English separates “send” from “release,” while the Hebrew root holds departure and letting go in one word.
ALSO GROWS
shilluach: Sending away; release.
שִׁלּוּחַ
This related noun makes explicit the release contained in the husband’s act of sending her from his house.
shaliach: Messenger; one who is sent.
שָׁלִיחַ
The messenger branch shows that this root carries movement outward from a source, as the verse describes her departure from the household.
THE PATTERN
A sending marks the passage from one place or role into another.
And Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of waters, and gave them to Hagar, setting them on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away. And she went and strayed in the wilderness of Beersheba.And the Egyptians gripped the people hard, to send them out of the land in haste; for they said, “We are all dead.”And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they let them go.THE THREAD
Thus says the LORD, Where is the bill of your mother's cutting away, whom I have sent away? Or to which of my creditors have I sold you? Behold, for your crookedness you have sold yourselves, and for your rebellions your mother has been sent away.Isaiah repeats both the Hebrew phrase sefer keritut (“bill of divorcement”) and the shalach root in “whom I have put away.” Here they mark the second husband’s concrete act; Isaiah uses the same words to ask whether the LORD has issued such a severance.
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