If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.
-Deuteronomy 22:22, NIV
While we do not kill adulterous parties anymore in the USA, I do believe we can derive some wisdom from this verse.
The finality of the situation is striking. God did not mess around with dealing with the evil known as adultery. He was very strict in the Old Testament.
We could learn to similarly take a hard line–an intolerant one towards adultery.
Instead of killing the adulterous parties, we can learn that the marriage is over in the eyes of God here. So, it should be in ours as well. That ought to help us to take the next important steps.
Sometimes divorce is simply a necessary ending.
It is a burial of what was already killed by the adultery. Once buried, we may find–as I did–new life that is even better than before. But the burial remains an important step towards that new life.
