What Does Matthew 19:9 Mean?
And I say to you, Whoever sends away his wife, except for fornication, and takes another, commits adultery, and whoever takes her who has been sent away commits adultery.
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 I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.THE KEY
Here, “put away” means release or send away, yet the verse says that release does not make a following marriage unrelated to the bond being left.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks a hard boundary: putting away a wife and marrying another is named adultery, with fornication expressly stated as an exception in that clause. It repeats the adultery charge for marrying a woman who has been put away. Dismissal and the next marriage remain connected in the words of the verse.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A change in marital status does not by itself make the next union morally separate or erase what came before. The verse also states an exception in its first clause, so its warning is not expressed without qualification.
THE ROOT
ἀπολύσῃ
apolysē
GROWS FROM
λύω
loosen, release
“sends away” in this verse is apolysē. The verb carries the sense of releasing, dismissing, or sending away; here it names the act of putting a wife away. The verse then joins that release to a new marriage and names the result as adultery, so “release” does not make the next union stand apart from the bond being left.
ALSO GROWS
lyō: loosen, release
λύω
This is the base verb inside apolyō and keeps the sense of release audible beneath “put away.”
apolysis: release, dismissal
ἀπόλυσις
This noun from the same word family shows how the act of sending away can itself be named as a release or dismissal.
μοιχᾶται
moichatai
GROWS FROM
μοιχ-
adultery, violation of a marriage bond
“commits adultery” in this verse is moichatai. The same form of the adultery verb appears after both marriage scenarios, making the second clause an echo rather than a lesser side note. The charge is attached to the new marriage in both clauses, while the stated exception appears only in the first.
ALSO GROWS
moicheuō: commit adultery
μοιχεύω
This verb shares the adultery stem and makes clear that moichatai names an act, not just a status.
moichalis: adulteress
μοιχαλίς
This related noun carries the same stem into a word for a woman associated with adultery.
πορνείᾳ
porneia
GROWS FROM
πορν-
sexual immorality
The exception is expressed with porneia, while the consequence is named with the separate moich- word family. Porneia can cover a broader range of sexual immorality than the narrow modern sense of “fornication,” so the Greek term carries the scope of the stated exception.
ALSO GROWS
pornē: prostitute
πόρνη
This related noun shows one concrete expression within the porneia word family.
porneuō: engage in sexual immorality
πορνεύω
This verb shows the family extending from a noun for sexual immorality to the conduct it describes.
THE PATTERN
Marriage makes a one-flesh bond that a dismissal does not make morally unrelated to a following union.
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.And he said to them, Whoever sends away his wife and marries another commits adultery against her.THE THREAD
But I say to you, whoever sends away his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries the one who was sent away commits adultery.Matthew 5:32 uses the same Greek verb ἀπολύω (apolyō, release or dismiss) for putting away, then names adultery in the marriage that follows. It opens Matthew 19:9 further by showing the consequences of the dismissal for the woman who is put away.
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