Matt 5.31-32. Anyone who divorces his wife causes her to commit adultery

To avoid punishing adultery, they created a protected class of adulterers.

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Matthew 5.31-32

It was also said, “Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.” But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Hagner, pages 125-126

The Mosaic law allowed divorce, making provision for the divorced woman by the certificate of divorce. Later in the Gospel, Jesus will comment on the reason for this legislation (19:3-12). In the present passage Jesus introduces the new and shocking idea that even properly divorced people who marry a second tine may be thought of as committing adultery. The OT, allowing divorce, does not regard those who remarry as committing adultery. This new and dramatic way of speaking is directly related to the absolute prohibition of divorce by Jesus. Marriage was meant to establish a permanent relationship between a man and a woman, and divorce should therefore not be considered an option for the disciples of the kingdom. As will appear in 19:3-12, the original ideal for man and woman was one of permanent marriage. The fulfillment brought by the present existence of the kingdom demands a return of the disciples to that original standard. Divorce is therefore to be shunned. The ethics of the kingdom do not balk at the idealism of such a standard (cf. 5:48).

The point of speaking of remarriage as involving “adultery” is simply to emphasize the wrongness of divorce. The conclusion is drawn by some interpreters that while divorce may be allowable for the Christian, on the basis of this passage remarriage is prohibited because it involves adultery. A divorce without the possibility of remarriage is, however, in the context of this discussion, really only a separation and not a divorce. Moses allowed divorce and remarriage—it must be noted, without designating the remarried as adulterers—because of the hardness of the hearts of the people. If, as we shall argue in the explanation of the parallel passage in chap. 19, followers of Jesus, recipients of the kingdom, are still not in this new era rid of their hard hearts, divorce and remarriage continue to occur among them, just as it did among the people of God in the OT (see further Comment on 19:3-12). Matthew’s own insertion of the exception clauses, modifying the absolute teaching of Jesus, is just such an admission in the church of his day. Still, however, it is worth adding that conceding the hard realities of our continuing fallenness and the reality of forgiveness for those who fail must not allow us to weaken our commitment to continue to strive after the ideal.

This is a tough one. As a beginning point, it must be observed that there was no adultery in the law of Moses.

The Israelites apparently regarded the law as too strict, so God gave them divorce, to put a fence around the problem the people had created.