The Sefer Kritut: Who Had the Authority to Divorce and Why It Matters

Deuteronomy 24:1-4 is the foundational text for the entire biblical discussion of divorce. Every subsequent reference to divorce in the Old Testament and every reference in the New Testament assumes the framework this passage establishes. Jesus references it in his exchange with the Pharisees in Matthew 19. Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 7 assumes it. Understanding what Deuteronomy 24 actually says and what it does not say is prerequisite to reading any of the passages that come after it.

The passage describes a situation: a man finds some uncleanness in his wife. He writes her a bill of divorcement, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house. She then becomes another man's wife. If the second husband also divorces her or dies, the first husband may not take her back. She has been defiled before him.

The Sefer Keritut: The Bill of Cutting Off

The Hebrew term for the bill of divorcement is sefer keritut, literally a document of cutting off. The word keritut comes from a root meaning to cut, to sever. The sefer keritut is a document that accomplishes a specific act: it severs the covenant bond between the husband and wife. It cuts the woman off from the household of her husband and restores her freedom.

Three elements are essential to the sefer keritut. The husband initiates the action. A written document is produced. The document is put in the wife's hand. All three must be present for the covenantal severing to be accomplished. The husband's verbal declaration alone is not enough. The document without delivery is not enough. And critically: the wife has no authority to produce a sefer keritut against her husband. The authority belongs exclusively to the husband. It always did under Mosaic law.

What the Sefer Keritut Accomplished

When the sefer keritut was properly executed, it accomplished two things. It released the wife from the covenant obligation that bound her to the first husband. And it restored her freedom to marry another man. Deuteronomy 24:2 states this explicitly: she may go and be another man's wife. The release was genuine and her freedom was real.

This is why the man who marries a woman whose first husband gave her a bill of divorcement is in a different situation from the man who marries a woman who was only put away informally. In the first case, she received genuine release on the authority of the only party who had standing to give it. Her covenant was lawfully dissolved. The second marriage does not intrude on an active covenant. In the second case, no release was given. She remains bound. The second marriage intrudes on an active covenant, which is why Jesus calls it adultery.

The Thread from Deuteronomy to the New Testament

The Pharisees who questioned Jesus in Matthew 19 were debating the grounds for divorce, not the mechanism. They assumed the sefer keritut framework. They debated over what uncleanness in verse 1 meant, specifically whether it covered only sexual infidelity (Shammai) or any displeasure (Hillel). Jesus stepped behind their debate entirely and pointed to Genesis: the marriage structure precedes the divorce provision, and the divorce provision was a concession to hardness of heart, not a divine endorsement of routine marital dissolution.

Paul's instructions in 1 Corinthians 7 also assume the sefer keritut framework. When he tells the departing wife she must remain unmarried or be reconciled, he is describing the situation of a woman who departed without a sefer keritut. She left. Her husband did not release her. She remains bound. When he says in verse 15 that the believer is not bound if the unbelieving spouse departs, he is addressing the believing spouse's obligation to pursue the departing unbeliever, not to their freedom to remarry.

Why the Authority Question Governs the Modern Analysis

The authority question the sefer keritut establishes, that only the husband has standing to dissolve the covenant, governs the modern analysis because the principle it establishes has not changed. God did not give the wife the authority to dissolve the marriage covenant in the Mosaic law, and nothing in the New Testament transfers that authority to her. A wife who initiates a civil divorce is exercising a civil right the state grants her. She is not exercising a covenantal authority the text gives her, because the text never gave it to her.

That conclusion is uncomfortable in a culture where women's legal rights in marriage are rightly protected by civil law. But the discomfort does not change what the text says. The text assigns the authority to dissolve the covenant to the husband. The civil law assigns divorce rights to both parties. The civil law and the covenant operate in different domains, and what the civil law permits does not automatically become what the covenant authorizes.