Bible dictionaries

Divorce

What Bible dictionaries say about “Divorce”, one article after the other.

Easton’s Bible Dictionary & Webster’s 1828 Dictionary

Divorce - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

The dissolution of the marriage tie was regulated by the Mosaic law (Deut. 24:1-4). The Jews, after the Captivity, were reguired to dismiss the foreign women they had married contrary to the law (Ezra 10:11-19). Christ limited the permission of divorce to the single case of adultery. It seems that it was not uncommon for the Jews at that time to dissolve the union on very slight pretences (Matt. 5:31, 32; 19:1-9; Mark 10:2-12; Luke 16:18). These precepts given by Christ regulate the law of divorce in the Christian Church.

Divorce - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

DIVORCE, n. [L. See Divert.]

1. A legal dissolution of the bonds of matrimony, or the separation of husband and wife by a judicial sentence. This is properly called a divorce, and called technically, divorce a vinculo matrimonii.

2. The separation of a married woman from the bed and board of her husband, a mensa et thoro.

3. Separation; disunion of things closely united.

4. The sentence or writing by which marriage is dissolved.

5. The cause of any penal separation.

The long divorce of steel falls on me.

DIVORCE, v.t.

1. To dissolve the marriage contract, and thus to separate husband and wife.

2. To separate, as a married woman from the bed and board of her husband.

3. To separate or disunite things closely connected; to force asunder.

4. To take away; to put away.

Matthew George Easton, Easton’s Bible Dictionary; Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)

The article in Easton + Webster 1828

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE 1915)

see DIVORCE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT; DIVORCE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia — James Orr, general editor and contributors; CrossWire SWORD module ISBE 2.2

The article in ISBE 1915

Smith’s Bible Dictionary

"a legal dissolution of the marriage relation." The law regulating this subject is found (24:1-4) and the cases in which the right of a husband to divorce his wife was lost are stated ibid ., (22:19,29) The ground of divorce is appoint on which the Jewish doctors of the period of the New Testament differed widely; the school of Shammai seeming to limit it to a moral delinquency in the woman, whilst that the Hillel extended it to trifling causes, e.g., if the wife burnt the food she was cooking for her husband. The Pharisees wished perhaps to embroil our Saviour with these rival schools by their question, (Matthew 19:3) by his answer to which, as well as by his previous maxim, (Matthew 5:31) he declares that he regarded all the lesser causes than "fornication" as standing on too weak ground, and declined the question of how to interpret the words of Moses.

William Smith; revised by F. N. Peloubet and M. A. Peloubet; CrossWire SWORD module Smith 1.3

The article in Smith