I command, yet not I, but the Lord.—The contrast which is commenced here, and again brought out in 1Corinthians 7:12, is not between commands given by St. Paul as an inspired Apostle, and St. Paul as a private individual. In 1Corinthians 14:37 the Apostle expressly claims that all his commands as an Apostle should be regarded as “the commandments of the Lord,” and in 1Thessalonians 4:15 the Apostle speaks of that knowledge into which he was guided by the Holy Spirit as given “by the word of the Lord.” St. Paul must not therefore be regarded as here claiming for some of his instructions apostolic authority, and not claiming it for others. The real point of the contrast is between a subject on which our Lord Himself while on earth gave direct verbal instruction, and another subject on which He now gives His commands through His Apostle St. Paul. Christ had given directions regarding divorce (Matthew 5:31; Matthew 19:3-9; Mark 10:2-12), and the Apostle here has only to reiterate what the Lord had already commanded.

Let not the wife depart from her husband.—Better, Let her not be separated. The account of our Lord’s words given here differs in two respects from the record given of them by St. Matthew (Matthew 5:32; Matthew 19:9), where the reference is, first and more prominently, to the man putting away his wife—not, as here, to the wife separating herself from her husband—and the exception made, “except it be because of fornication,” is here omitted. The fact that St. Paul only knew from others what our Lord had said, and that the Evangelists wrote what they had heard themselves, would not sufficiently account for this difference; for surely these very Evangelists, or others who like them had heard the Lord’s words, would have been St. Paul’s informants. The reason of the variety in the two accounts is to be found, not in inaccurate knowledge on St. Paul’s part, which we have no reason to suppose, but in the particular circumstances to which the Apostle was applying the teaching of Christ; and this verbal difference is an instructive indication to us of how the Apostles understood that even in the case of the Lord Himself it was the living spirit of His teaching, and not its merely verbal form, which was of abiding and universal obligation. There was no necessity here to introduce the one exceptional cause of divorce which Christ had allowed, for the subject under consideration is a separation voluntarily made, and not as the result of sin on the part of either husband or wife; so the mention here of that ground of exception would have been inapplicable, and have tended only to confuse.

The other point of difference—viz., the mention here of the woman more prominently as separating from the husband—does not in any way affect the principle of the teaching, and indeed our Lord probably did put the case in both ways. (See Mark 10:12.) It may be also that in the letter to which St. Paul was replying the doubt had been suggested by women, who were—as their sex is often still—more anxiously scrupulous about details of what they conceived to be religious duty; and the question having been asked concerning a woman’s duty, the Apostle answers it accordingly, and adds the same instruction for the husband (1Corinthians 7:11).

(1) That their troubles and persecutions might be such that they might judge it best that families should be broken up; and,

(2) Probably many supposed that it was unlawful for a Christian wife or husband to be connected at all with a pagan and an idolater.

I command, yet not I, but the Lord - Not I so much as the Lord. This injunction is not to be understood as adVice merely, but as a solemn, divine command, from which you are not at liberty to depart. Paul here professes to utter the language of inspiration, and demands obedience. The express command of "the Lord" to which he refers, is probably the precept recorded in Matthew 5:32, and Matthew 19:3-10. These precepts of Christ asserted that the marriage tie was sacred and inviolable.

Let not the wife depart ... - Let her not prove faithless to her marriage vows; let her not, on any pretence, desert her husband. Though she is a Christian. and he is not, yet let her not seek, on that account, to be separate from him - The law of Moses did not permit a wife to divorce herself from her husband, though it was sometimes done (compare Matthew 10:12); but the Greek and Roman laws allowed it - Grotius. But Paul here refers to a formal and legal separation before the magistrates, and not to a voluntary separation, without intending to be formally divorced. The reasons for this opinion are:

(1) That such divorces were known and practiced among both Jews and pagans.

(2) it was important to settle the question whether they were to be allowed in the Christian church.

(3) the claim would be set up, probably, that it might be done.

(4) the question whether a "voluntary separation" might not be proper, where one party was a Christian, and the other not, he discusses in the following verses, 1 Corinthians 7:12-17. Here, therefore, he solemnly repeats the law of Christ, that divorce, under the Christian economy, was not to be in the power either of the husband or wife.

Let not the wife depart—literally, "be separated from." Probably the separation on either side, whether owing to the husband or to the wife, is forbidden.

yet not I, but the Lord; not as if he took upon him the dominion over them, to make laws for them, and, in an imperious authoritative way, oblige them to obedience to them; no; what he was about to deliver, was not a law of his own enacting and obtruding, but what their Lord, their Creator, head, husband, and Redeemer, had ordered and enjoined; and this grave solemn way of speaking he makes use of, to excite their attention, command awe and reverence, make the greater impression upon their minds, and show the obligation they were under to regard what was said:

let not the wife depart from her husband; for the same law that obliges a man to cleave to his wife, obliges the wife to cleave to her husband, Genesis 2:24 and those words of Christ, "what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder", Matthew 19:6 regard the one as well as the other; and the rules he has given, forbidding divorces only in case of adultery, Matthew 5:32 are as binding upon the wife as upon the husband. The wife therefore should not depart from her husband upon every slight occasion; not on account of any quarrel, or disagreement that may arise between them; or for every instance of moroseness and inhumanity; or because of diseases and infirmities; nor even on the score of difference in religion which, by what follows, seems to be greatly the case in view. The apostle observes this, in opposition to some rules and customs which obtained among Jews and Gentiles, divorcing and separating from one another upon various accounts; not only husbands put away their wives, but wives also left their husbands: for women to put away, or leave their husbands, were not in former times allowed of among the Jews, but from other nations crept in among them; indeed if a man married one under age, and she did not like him for her husband, she might refuse him, and go away without a bill of divorce; the manner of refusal was, by saying before two witnesses, I do not like such an one for my husband, or I do not like the espousals, with which my mother or my brother espoused me, or in such like words; and sometimes a written form of refusal was given (m); but otherwise where marriage was consummated, such a departure of the wife was not allowed. Salome, the sister of Herod, is thought to be the first that introduced it, who sent a bill of divorce to Costobarus (n) her husband; and in this she was followed by Herodias, the daughter of Aristobulus, who left her husband, and married Herod Antipas (o); and it seems certain, that this practice prevailed in Christ's time, since not only such a case is supposed, Mark 10:12 but a very flagrant instance is given in the woman of Samaria, John 4:18 who had had five husbands, not in a lawful regular manner, one after another upon their respective deaths, but she had married them, and put them away one after another: and as for the Gentiles, the account the Jews (p) give of them is, that though they had

"no divorces in form, they put away one another; R. Jochanan says, , "a man's wife might put him away", and give him the dowry:''

though, according to other accounts, they had divorces in form, which, when a man put away a woman, were called , "letters of dismission"; and when a woman left her husband, , "letters of dereliction", such as Hipparchia the wife of Alcibiades gave to him (q); and Justin Martyr (r) gives us an instance of a Christian woman, who gave her husband what the Roman senate called a divorce.

(m) Maimon. Hilch. Gerushim, c. 11. 1. 8. 11. & Ishot, c. 4. sect. 3.((n) Joseph. Antiqu. l. 15. c. 7. sect. 10. (o) lb. l. 18. c. 6. sect. 1.((p) Bereshit Rabba, sect. 18. fol. 15. 3.((q) Plutarch. in Alcibiade. (r) Apolog. 1. p. 41, 42.

(7) Seventhly, he forbids contentions and the granting of divorces (for he speaks not here of the fault of whoredom, which was then death even by the law of the Romans also) by which he affirms that the band of marriage is not dissolved, and that from Christ's mouth.