The OT view on divorce provides realism for the discussion of divorce that is much needed in the Church, whose neo-Marcionite view of the OT has led Christians to disregard its data. The OT shows that divorce, although always lamentable and ordinarily generating additional collateral sin and suffering, is tragically prudent under certain circumstances.
Without giving full weight to OT teaching, readers of the NT treatment of divorce are too quick to absolutize the words of Jesus, which in my view are no more to be taken literally than his command to gouge out your eye if it causes you to sin. Those for example who say that divorce is absolutely forbidden and that marriage is absolutely indissoluble in God's eyes must explain away the OT data where God's law clearly permits divorce (and the implied possibility of remarriage) under some circumstances and even commands it in others.
Likewise the OT data are a corrective to those who say that divorce is permissible in cases of adultery and abandonment only. I have heard of women who were hoping and praying that their husbands would commit adultery so that they would have Biblical grounds for divorce. But in the OT divorce is allowed for "indecencies" (Deut 24:1), ฉธบ. 24:1 “เมื่อชายคนใดเพิ่งมีภรรยา แต่งงานกับนาง และต่อมานางไม่เป็นที่โปรดปรานของเขา เพราะเขาพบว่านางมีสิ่งน่าอาย ดังนั้นเขาจึงทำหนังสือหย่าใส่มือของนาง แล้วไล่ออกจากบ้านของตนไป
which appears to be a broad term for a whole variety of offenses against the marriage covenant. When the notion of marriage as covenant is applied it becomes clear that any behavior that violates the essence of the marriage covenant could serve as grounds for divorce: wife abuse, flat refusal of conjugal rights, lack of support of the wife financially, and so forth.
This approach derived from the OT is thus broader than idealized and absolutized interpretations of the NT passages divorced from their OT backdrop. It is an approach that is practical in the real, sin-cursed, fallen world in which we live, where hardness of heart is often the rule rather than the exception. Indeed, placing more weight on this OT perspective would more often prevent the real moral evil of death and mayhem caused to some Christian women and their children who have continued to live with violent and abusive husbands because the Bible gave them no permission to divorce.
But despite the fact that the OT allowed divorce under certain conditions it gives no license to irresponsible divorce. The OT assumes monogamous, lifelong marriage as the ideal in which marriage is a binding covenant relationship, just as Rom 7:3 รม. 7:3 ฉะนั้น ถ้าหญิงนั้นไปเป็นของชายอื่นในเมื่อสามียังมี
says that a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. As in any case of breach of promise, violation of the marriage covenant involves sin. Thus the OT gives no grounds for supposing that a man could divorce his wife arbitrarily without any good reason and not incur guilt. There must be some "indecency" as a basis for justifying divorce. Hence Malachi condemns as immoral the unprovoked divorce of innocent Jewish wives. As a general rule God opposes divorce, since all divorce involves violation of covenant promises. The thrust of Biblical teaching is that divorce should be sought only as a last resort, to be discouraged in all but the most aggravated of cases. Modern American culture, with its predilection for no-fault, easy divorce, has made a mistake akin to that of Jesus opponents.
When scandalous and serious "indecencies" have occurred that destroy the essence of the marriage covenant, however, divorce (and the possibility of remarriage) is permitted. As in other covenants, if a marriage covenant is consistently violated by one partner the covenant can be invalidated so that the other partner is no longer obligated morally or legally to keep his or her end of the bargain.
In fact the OT indicates that in some circumstances divorce may be prescribed as the lesser of evils. It appears to have been God's will that Israelites at the time of Ezra divorce their foreign wives for their unlawful paganism. It was in accord with God's will for Abraham to divorce his slavewife Hagar.