The Marital Sabbath: A Truce with the World Text: Deuteronomy 24:5
Introduction: The World's War on the Home
We live in a frantic and disordered age. Our culture treats marriage as a temporary consumer relationship, a flimsy contract to be renegotiated or dissolved based on fluctuating emotional returns. The home, which God designed as the central ministry, the primary school, the first hospital, and the foundational government, has been demoted to a mere refueling station. We are told that a man's true worth is found "out there" in the marketplace or on the battlefield, and that a woman's fulfillment is found anywhere but in the joyful administration of her own domain. The world wants your marriage to fail, and if it cannot make it fail, it will settle for making it frantic, joyless, and distracted.
Into this chaos, the law of God speaks with a quiet and profound wisdom that is utterly alien to our modern sensibilities. The laws given to ancient Israel were not arbitrary hoops for them to jump through. They were the application of God's perfect, unchanging character to the life of a particular people in a particular time. And because God's character does not change, the principles underlying these laws are timeless. They reveal to us the grain of the universe. To go with that grain is to find life and blessing. To go against it is to find splinters and ruin.
Today we consider a seemingly small and specific statute, tucked away in the civil code of Deuteronomy. It is a law that our ambitious, utilitarian, and militaristic age would find baffling, if not downright irresponsible. It is a law about the first year of marriage. And in this law, we find a radical declaration of priorities. God declares that the establishment of a new household, the foundation of a new family, is so critically important that the demands of the state, the military, and the public square must all fall silent before it. This law is a kind of marital sabbath, a foundational rest, that sets the trajectory for a lifetime of fruitfulness. It is a truce with the world for the sake of the home.
The Text
"When a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out with the army nor be charged with any duty; he shall be free at home one year and shall give gladness to his wife whom he has taken."
(Deuteronomy 24:5 LSB)
A Divine Exemption (v. 5a)
The first part of the verse establishes a remarkable set of prohibitions.
"When a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out with the army nor be charged with any duty..." (Deuteronomy 24:5a)
Consider what is being set aside here. First, military service. In the ancient world, the army was the ultimate claim of the state upon a man's life. National defense is a legitimate and necessary duty. God is not a pacifist. Yet, here He says that even this high duty must yield to a higher one. The integrity of the nation is built upon the integrity of its families. A nation that has strong families does not need to worry nearly as much about its borders. A nation of broken homes is already a conquered nation, no matter how large its army.
God is teaching us that the foundational work of building a civilization happens in the home. The war for the future is fought first and foremost on the fields of domesticity. A man's first duty is not to the generals, but to the wife of his youth. If he fails there, his service on the battlefield is just a noisy distraction from his primary failure.
But the exemption is broader than that. He is not to "be charged with any duty." This refers to any form of public or civil conscription, any business of the state that would take him away from his primary task. This is a radical reordering of priorities. Our modern world screams that a man must make his mark, climb the ladder, build his resume, and secure his financial future from day one. The world says, "Get busy." God says, "Go home."
This is not a command to be lazy. As we will see, this year is for a very specific kind of work. But it is a command to be focused. It tells the man that his most important project in that first year is not his career, not his public reputation, and not even the national defense. His most important project is his wife.
A Sacred Freedom (v. 5b)
The verse then describes the nature of this year-long exemption.
"...he shall be free at home one year..." (Deuteronomy 24:5b LSB)
This is a God-ordained liberty. He is to be "free at home." This is not a house arrest. It is a release into his primary domain. The word "free" here means he is clear of all other obligations in order to attend to this one. For one year, his address is "home." His occupation is "husband."
This establishes the principle that the home is a place of productive, essential, and honorable work. It is not a place to escape from, but a place to be established in. This first year is a time for the man and woman to learn the rhythms of their life together. It is a time to weave the tapestry of shared habits, inside jokes, and common knowledge that makes a marriage strong. It is a time to learn how to pray together, read Scripture together, and work together. It is a time for the man to learn his wife, to study her, to understand what makes her tick, and to begin the lifelong project of loving her as Christ loved the church.
This is the laying of a foundation. If you get the foundation wrong, the whole house will be crooked. Many marital problems that show up in year five or ten or twenty began as hairline cracks in year one, cracks that formed because the couple was too distracted, too busy, and too focused on the world's priorities to lay the foundation with care. God, in His wisdom, provides a year-long moratorium on outside distractions so that this crucial work can be done, and done well.
The Great Commission of Marriage (v. 5c)
Finally, we are given the explicit purpose of this marital sabbath. What is this man supposed to be doing for a whole year at home? The answer is as simple as it is profound.
"...and shall give gladness to his wife whom he has taken." (Genesis 24:5c LSB)
This is his great commission for the first year. His task is to make his wife happy. The Hebrew word here is samach, which means to rejoice, to gladden, to make merry. This is not a grim duty. It is a joyful one. The husband's central project is the delight of his bride. He is to be the source and cause of her gladness.
This one phrase demolishes all the feminist caricatures of biblical marriage. This is not a portrait of a domineering patriarch demanding submission from a cowering wife. This is a man commanded by Almighty God to devote a full year of his life to the singular task of bringing joy to his wife. He is to cultivate her happiness as a gardener cultivates a prize-winning rose. Her joy is his vocation.
And how does he do this? He does it by being present. He does it by listening. He does it by providing for her and protecting her. He does it by leading her in gentleness and strength. He does it by making their home a place of security, laughter, and warmth. He gives her gladness by showing her, day in and day out, that she is his treasure, his priority, and his delight.
This command sets the trajectory for the rest of their lives. The first year is not a vacation from which he returns to "real life." It is an intensive training period that establishes the habits of a lifetime. The husband who learns to delight his wife in year one will be well-practiced in doing so in year fifty. This is how a covenant is sealed not just in law, but in love and laughter.
The Gospel in the First Year
Like all of God's laws, this one points us beyond itself to the Lord Jesus Christ. This statute is a beautiful picture of the relationship between Christ and His bride, the Church.
When Christ took us as His bride, He set aside His glory. He left the courts of heaven and was made "free" from His celestial duties, so to speak, in order to come to us. He did not come for a brief visit; He tabernacled among us. He made His home with us. He did not come with the armies of heaven to conquer us, but He came in humility to win us.
And what is His central project? It is the joy of His bride. "As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you" (Isaiah 62:5). Jesus endured the cross "for the joy that was set before him" (Hebrews 12:2), and that joy was His redeemed people, His bride, presented to Himself without spot or wrinkle. His entire ministry is dedicated to "giving gladness" to His wife whom He has taken.
This is why the New Testament commands husbands to love their wives "as Christ loved the church" (Ephesians 5:25). Our marriages are meant to be living sermons, earthly pictures of this heavenly reality. The husband, in his focused, sacrificial, joy-giving love for his wife, is preaching the gospel to his family and to a watching world.
This law, therefore, is not some dusty relic of an ancient legal code. It is a foundational principle of creation and redemption. It teaches us that marriage is a high calling, that the home is the center of the world, and that a husband's first and highest duty is to cultivate the gladness of his wife. When we order our homes according to this divine pattern, we are not just building strong marriages. We are building outposts of the Kingdom of God, little embassies of heaven, in a world that has forgotten the meaning of joy.