Matthew 19:1 - 6

1 Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these sayings, that He departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.

2 And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there.

3 The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”

4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’

5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?

6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Jesus has left the area of the Sea of Galilee and is traveling on His way to Jerusalem for the last Passover He would partake of while on earth. He is traveling on the east side of the river Jordan, it is the area of Herod Antipas. It is the southern 2/3 of the river between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea.

As usual great crowds followed him and there were also many which were traveling to the feast as well who would be interested in hearing his teachings and seeing the miracles happen as He healed those who were ailing.

As was common there were Pharisees and others who were trying to trip up Jesus in his teachings. This time they bring up the subject of marriage and divorce. They knew God's word and they knew the way the Jewish culture allowed divorce.

Jesus began His answer to their question by going back to the beginning of time and the creation. God had created mankind by creating them as biologically making men and women the two different genders, male and female. He is showing the union was to be of one man and one woman.

God intended one man to live with one woman to reproduce the human race. They would leave their parents to join themselves together, marriage in the beginning had no ceremony, or license but was simply one man and one woman leaving their parents and beginning their own family to produce children, their sexual union would form the marriage.

After they have joined themselves together, they no longer are separate entities, but one physical unit, and what was intended by God was for that physical unit to remain together until one of them died.