Matt 19:12
King James Bible
For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from
their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive
it, let him receive
it.
The term
eunuch (
/ˈjuːnək/;
Greek: εὐνοῦχος)
[1] generally refers to a
manwho has been
castrated,
[2] typically early enough in his life for this change to have major
hormonal consequences. In Latin, the words
eunuchus,
[3] spado (Greek: σπάδων
spadon),
[4][5] and
castratus were used to denote eunuchs.
[6]
Eunuch - Wikipedia
Any volunteers?
I don't agree with standard commentaries on this which is part of the dialogue about divorce and marriage. Jesus talks about divorce with his disciples, and some of them say "Then its better not to marry." They aren't talking about cutting their testicles out necessarily. They could be, but the center of the conversation is about hardness of heart.
Standard commentaries (such as Matthew Henry) say that Jesus is restricting divorce to cases where the woman or man have committed adultery. This seems like poor commentary. When we open a commentary book we are looking for insights, and this is not insightful. He seems unaware of the mode of the conversation and the issues the people are thinking about.
What Jesus says is that the reason people get divorced is that their hearts have become hard which causes adultery to occur. (Possibly he is blaming the divorce on the man and saying its the hardness of the man's heart, although its unclear to me for sure on that.) The way it is phrased and because of the way the culture works, it is possible he is blaming the wife's adultery upon the husband although this is unclear to me.
Whether he is blaming the wife's adultery on the husband's heart or whether it is more general, this explanation of divorce is why the disciples think its better not to marry. They find it a very challenging teaching. Hardness of heart is a serious thing in the law. It means you have not loved the LORD with all of your heart which means you have broken covenant. (Deut 10:16, Deut 30:6) Jesus is making his disciples very uncomfortable with this lesson. Its not that they want to marry and divorce all the time frivolously but its his commentary about hardness of heart. He's just raised the bar for his disciples. Now marriage is a risk to them, because they know relationships get rocky all the time.
Jesus point were not, however, to place restrictions upon divorce like "You may only get divorced in this situation." or to say "If you get divorced you may not remarry." That would be entirely missing the point. If it were his point, then he would not have been discussing hardness of heart and the cause of adultery, nor would his disciples have said that it was better not to marry. It would simply be a matter of never getting divorced then. Its entirely possible to get married, have a difficult relationship but stay married. What's difficult is the situation Jesus mentions, that if your relationship gets rocky its because your heart is hard, and so you have failed to keep the covenant. That is what makes the disciples question whether they ought to get married in the first place.
