“Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily.”
And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. Joseph's character is established in a single verse: just and merciful, a man who follows the law (which entitled him to public divorce) while choosing the form of it that protects Mary from maximum exposure. The tension between justice and mercy that will run through Jesus' entire ministry is enacted in miniature by the man who raised him. Deuteronomy 24:1 permitted divorce; Numbers 5 provided a public shaming process for suspected adultery. Joseph chooses neither the full rigor of the law nor its most severe interpretation. He is a righteous man who has not yet learned what righteousness is about to require of him.
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