Responsibility of Marriage

Reading:   Deuteronomy 24

There are a number of great topical verses in this chapter which made it difficult to choose one as a centerpiece for today's blog; so, as yesterday's was such a masterfully executed failure, I have selected two.

The first requires little explanation though it is powerful...

DEUTERONOMY 24:16

16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin. 

There is no getting around that verse, loophole-wise, it is sound and sage, without need for interpretation.

That which ye commit so shall ye be tried for - Ye and none other!

The second verse really made me smile because it enforces the need for love and a nurturing of love at its most vulnerable stage...

DEUTERONOMY 24:5

5 When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business: but he shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer up his wife which he hath taken. 

The emphasis that Mathew Henry put on this particular verse is too good to paraphrase and a tragic error if I don't share it...

Here is, provision made for the preservation and confirmation of love between new-married people.  This fitly follows upon the laws concerning divorce, which would be prevented if their affection to each other were well settled at first. If the husband were much abroad from his wife the first year, his love to her would be in danger of cooling, and of being drawn aside to others whom he would meet with abroad; therefore his service to his country in war, embassies, or other public business that would call him from home, shall be dispensed with, that he may cheer up the wife that he has taken. Note, It is of great consequence that love be kept up between husband and wife, and that every thing be very carefully avoided which might make them strange one to another, especially at first; for in that relation, where there is not the love that should be, there is an inlet ready to abundance of guilt and grief. One of the duties of that relation is to cheer up one another under the cares and crosses that happen, as helpers of each other’s joy; for a cheerful heart does good like a medicine.

I'm going to make a plaque out of that last little bit.  I find it incredibly insightful and a fitting reminder to all couples...

The RESPONSIBILITY of MARRIAGE

To cheer up one another under the cares and crosses that happen,

As helpers of each others joy.

~Kipling