⭐WEB · Matthew 19:6
What does Matthew 19:6 mean?
"So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, don’t let man tear apart.”"
— Matthew 19:6 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Pharisees came to him, testing him, and saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?”
He answered, “Haven’t you read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female,
and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh?’
So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, don’t let man tear apart.”
They asked him, “Why then did Moses command us to give her a bill of divorce, and divorce her?”
He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it has not been so.
I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries her when she is divorced commits adultery.”
Explanation
Matthew 19:6 records the climax of Jesus' teaching on marriage, delivered in response to a question from the Pharisees about divorce. In plain language, Jesus is saying that once a man and woman marry, they are no longer to be viewed as two separate individuals but as a single united entity — "one flesh." Because this union is something God himself establishes and joins together, no human being has the right or authority to break it apart.
The context is a confrontation in which the Pharisees test Jesus by asking whether it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason (Matthew 19:3). This was a live controversy among Jewish teachers, who debated how broadly to interpret the grounds for divorce allowed in Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Rather than engaging in that legal debate on their terms, Jesus points them back further, to creation itself. He quotes Genesis 1:27 and 2:24, reminding them that God made humanity male and female and designed marriage from the very beginning as a one-flesh union. The verse in question is Jesus' own concluding application of that Genesis quotation — his summary statement of what marriage fundamentally is.
Theologically, this verse teaches that marriage is not merely a social contract or human institution that people are free to define or dissolve as they see fit. It is a divine act — God is the one who "joins together" a husband and wife, making them one flesh in a way that reflects unity, permanence, and sacred purpose. This elevates marriage above a matter of personal convenience or legal technicality; it is grounded in the created order
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