Though divorce was allowed among the Israelites on various grounds as a concession, Jehovah God regulated it in his Law given to Israel through Moses. Deuteronomy 24:1 reads: “In case a man takes a woman and does make her his possession as a wife, it must also occur that if she should find no favor in his eyes because he has found something indecent on her part, he must also write out a certificate of divorce for her and put it in her hand and dismiss her from his house.” Just what “something indecent” (literally, “the nakedness of a thing”) was is not specifically stated. That it was not adultery is indicated by the fact that God’s law given to Israel decreed that those guilty of adultery be put to death, not merely be divorced. (De 22:22-24) Doubtless, originally the ‘indecency’ that would have given a Hebrew husband some basis for divorcing his wife involved serious matters, perhaps the wife’s showing gross disrespect for the husband or bringing shame on the household. Since the Law specified that “you must love your fellow as yourself,” it is not reasonable to assume that petty faults could be used with impunity as excuses for divorcing a wife.​—Le 19:18.

Certificate of Divorce. It should not be concluded from the later abuses that the original Mosaic divorce concession made it easy for an Israelite husband to divorce his wife. In order to do so, he had to take formal steps. It was necessary to write a document, to “write out a certificate of divorce for her.” The divorcing husband had to “put it in her hand and dismiss her from his house.” (De 24:1) While the Scriptures do not provide additional details on this procedure, this legal step apparently involved consultation with duly authorized men, who might first endeavor to effect a reconciliation. The time involved in preparing the certificate and legally implementing the divorce would afford the divorcing husband opportunity to reconsider his decision. There would have to be a basis for the divorce, and when the regulation was properly applied, this would logically serve as a deterrent to rash action in obtaining divorces. Then, too, the wife’s rights and interests were thus protected. The Scriptures do not disclose the contents of the “certificate of divorce.”

Remarriage of Divorced Mates. Deuteronomy 24:1-4 also stipulated that the divorced woman “must go out of his house and go and become another man’s,” meaning that she was eligible for remarriage. It was also stated: “If the latter man has come to hate her and has written out a certificate of divorce for her and put it in her hand and dismissed her from his house, or in case the latter man who took her as his wife should die, the first owner of her who dismissed her will not be allowed to take her back again to become his wife after she has been defiled; for that is something detestable before Jehovah, and you must not lead the land that Jehovah your God is giving you as an inheritance into sin.” The former husband was barred from taking the divorced wife back, perhaps in order to prevent the possibility of any scheming between him and this remarried wife to force her divorce from her second husband or to cause his death, thereby allowing for remarriage with her previous husband. If her former marriage mate took her back, it would be an unclean thing in God’s eyes; the first husband would make himself look foolish because he had dismissed her as a woman in whom he had found “something indecent” and then, after she had been lawfully joined to another man and used as his wife, he took her back once again.

Doubtless the very fact that the original husband could not remarry his divorced wife after she became another man’s, even if that man divorced her or died, made the husband contemplating divorce action think seriously before acting to end the marriage. (Jer 3:1) However, nothing was said that would prohibit him from remarrying his divorced wife if she had not remarried after the legal severance of their marriage tie.