3. No; all but disappeared means it was on the steep decline. and 300 concubines (Isn't sex outside of marriage a sin?!). Solomon had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. Nothing good or bad is mentioned about the marriage. Consequently, the biblical material does not consider those relationships adulterous or as prostitution.. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife (1 Tim 3:1-2), Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well (1 Tim 3:12), The Old Testament on Marriage on Marriage and Polygamy, Careers Workplace and Religion Columnists, Recreation Outdoors and Religion Columnists, Religious Music and Entertainment Columnists, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, What Did Jesus Really Look Like: A Look at the Bible Facts, Why? Chapter 19: Jesus ChristGods Choice. Why Did God Allow Polygamy? At contest in the Fall to sin is the question of dependence on God and His provision in all things, including the determinant of good and evil, or perceived independence and the. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Knowwhose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believers daily walk with God and the Bible. In Genesis 29:30-33 it would seem that God was concerned with a man loving TWO different women equally. Source: adapted from http://www.gotquestions.org/polygamy.html. Yahweh surely would not have given David multiple wives if it was necessarily harmful to David. However, the biblical writers werent idiots; they could read Gen 1-2, and yet THEY did not restrict its wording to one coupling. Was it always Gods plan for every man to have one woman or should I say every husband have his own wife? People can interact with the content. The Bible does not specifically say why God allowed polygamy, and we must remember that allowance is not the same as approval. The issue isnt whether polygamy can cause problems in the home (monogamy can do that too). And so these passages can be read either way in the context of one marriage or more than one. If you believe God planned for the obsolescence of the theocracy (I think thats hard to miss in the NT), then monogamy as a moral standard would (in a Christian ethic) be the moral standard now (post-theocracy). How is sexual activity defined in the bible. My blog is not a forum for you, and you dont get to dictate what I spend my time on for my blogs content. A man would take multiple wives and serve as the provider and protector of all of them. For, as it is written, The two will become one flesh.'. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. Cat may have spent a week locked in a drawer - how concerned should I be? Thank you, Yes, the act of intercourse amounts to the joining of two fleshes into one. Abraham is the next polygamist in the Bible. As we have read, and as you can read in the Bible for yourself, every time a man took more than one wife there were issues that created problems and divided the home. The Abimelech war put Israel into a spiritual and military tailspin from which it did not recover until the monarchy. He served on the faculty of Toronto Baptist Seminary and Bible College for 15 years and taught at the University of Toronto, Heritage Theological Seminary, and Tyndale Theological Seminary. Almost every story involving polygamy in the Bible resulted in strained relationships and difficult marriages. I know that Jesus says that to look upon a woman lustfully is the same as commiting adultery with her. . . We have three scriptures which testify that God commanded polygamy/polygyny; thus if God doesn't command us to sin, then polygyny can't be wrong. 1. Polygamy had no vital theological place in that plan and would ultimately become even culturally irrelevant when Israel was replaced as the circumcision-neutral Church as the people of God. Scripture wasnt written to be a divine dietary prescription from heaven. The victorious son followed his fathers family practices to an extreme. where would you get that idea? He created Adam and Eve to cleave together, the two becoming one ( Genesis 2:24 ). KIM: This is a more difficult question than one that can be answered in thirty seconds or a minute. My question then is this: Since youve defined concubinage as different from marriage (point #3 in the post), but have also said that all extra-marital sex is sin, how was sex with a concubine okay? This may be a bit off topic, but is it your understanding that all sexual activity, save that between a man and his wife (or wives or concubines), is considered by God to be a sin? Concubinage was much more; it presumed extended care and producing children). David (1 Sam 25:39; 2 Sam 3:2-5; 5:13; 1 Chr 14:3), It is ironic that Mann, based on 2 Samuel 12:8, lists Davids taking more wives in 5:13 as having a positive effect.28 She does this on the assumption that God was blessing David. The reasons for the gravity of this crime are never explicitly stated in the OT, yet the patrilineal nature of Israelite society strongly suggests that mistaken paternity would surely be dreaded. (Mark 10:45, ESV). The question begins by asking, "Why does God?" This is the p KIM: This is a more difficult question than one that can be answered in thirty seconds or a minute. The two wives competed against each other based on their ability to produce children. It is not as much God disallowing something He previously allowed as it is God restoring marriage to His original intent. The Bible says that Gods original intention was for one man to be married to only one woman, For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife (not wives); and they shall become one flesh (not multiple fleshes) (Genesis 2:24). Just because others did this in the Old Testament is no reason that we can have a license to do the same thing. Many laws were set aside in the NT period (read the book of Acts, for example). So, why would God allow people after his own heart, such as King David, to participate in this act? That passage says nothing about anyone losing their life. There is a passage where Yahweh is in judgment of David after David had done the Bathsheba/ Uriah the Hittite ordeal and Yahweh is chewing David out . Sarai/Sarah was his half sister, so he was telling a partial truth. Additionally, if a man (regardless of marital status) had sex with a virginal girl, he was required to marry her (though if it was consensual, her father could nullify the agreement and thereby prevent the marriage, the same way he was allowed to nullify any other contract his daughters entered into). I conducted a study of Bible passages in which appear different aspects of the oppression of women. The created universe (and God himself) are more complex than we know, or can know. The former is part of a future paradise. The practice of having multiple spouses has been the subject of much debate and discussion over the centuries, with varying opinions and interpretations. A wantonly wicked king, he was also a polygamist. Long story short, when God led the ancient Hebrews into freedom from the Egyptians, the Hebrew people asked God to create a system of rules they could follow rather than being guided by a personal relationship with Him. . God is never portrayed as commanding anyone to take a second wife, and in most cases in the Old Testament where polygamy is described, it is disastrous (most notably Abraham and David). The glaring fact that the Old Testament uses different terms (wife, concubine, harlot) for women with whom men had intercourse (and in some cases the same man) and only one of those terms met the social, cultural, and legal parameters of wife (e.g., one would not hold a marriage celebration for all three) tells us clearly that the act of intercourse did not constitute a marriage in biblical thinking or theology. - Polygamy in the Old Testament. Obviously, Esaus marriage to Mahalath is no endorsement of polygamy, and only adds further vividness to the negative portrait Scripture is painting of it. Gods patience is not permission. Two other sons struggled for the throne, leading to deaths and depositions of talented men, including the death of the son who lost the power struggle. I have discussed this recently after some news articles were published concerning the suicide of a young Moroccan girl who was forced to marry her attacker under laws which seem to mirror the Deut material. When Paul was giving Titus instructions for selecting church elders he wrote that if anyone is above reproach [he should be] the husband of one wife (Titus 1:6) or literally, the husband should be a man of one woman so the New Testament nowhere condones or allows for the practice of polygamy. Solomons wives turned his heart from following the LORD, with the results that the kingdom was torn in two and his son kept the smaller portion. 19:8). Do we have a good Christian polygamy definition? Polygamy was not a sin in the OT law. Another point is that the biblical text does not condemn polygamy as adultery. If Solomon had obeyed Gods command in Deuteronomy 17:17, he would have saved himself, his family, and his kingdom from much evil and grief. 1) What is the OTs view of premarital, non-betrothed sex? At any rate, my comment relates to something a little different. There are a few key factors to consider. Shed be okay in her parents home, but if the father died and there were no sons, shed be literally without wealth/income/food/shelter. What About Polygamy in the Bible? The problems associated with polygamy in the life of Jacob hardly need mentioning, These narratives [i.e., Abrahams and Jacobs polygamy] . Why did God allow polygamy in the Bible? Southern Equip A man named Elkanah had two wives: Hannah, who was barren, and Peninnah, who had children. And his wives turned away his heart. While definitely not ideal, living in a polygamist household was far better than the alternatives: prostitution, slavery, starvation, etc. Excellent! Both the Old Testament and the New Testament view extra-marital (a key term) sex as a heinous sin, one dealt with in the most serious way under the Mosaic law (death penalty if the sin was by consent; cp. 3. However, just because the Old Testament never forbids polygamy outright doesnt mean it has nothing to say on the topic. Though Mann lists the effect of this episode as both negative and positive,26 it can hardly be used as support for polygamy. Yet tribal infighting continued to be a problem until the carrying away of the northern kingdom. Episode 860 May 17, 2016 Interview with John Piper Founder & Teacher, desiringGod.org Subscribe Apple Spotify Audio Transcript A longtime reader of desiringGod content and a podcast listener who lives in Africa, writes in with an honest question: "Pastor John, I am a married man with four children and recently I met another woman. There is no indication God was displeased with Jacob, for example, and his wives and concubines, from whom came the 12 tribes. The term in the ten commandments (naaph; Exo 20:14; Deut 5:18) occurs only one other place in the Mosaic law (Lev 20:10). The first instance of polygamy / bigamy in the Bible was Lamech in Genesis 4:19Lamech married two women. Several prominent men in the Old Testament were polygamists. An interesting topic. Just because God didnt strike them down doesnt mean He condoned their actions, which leads to the final point. Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon, and others all had multiple wives. Why Was There Polygamy In The Old Testament? - What Christians Want To Know lest his heart turn away from the Lord, so if the king could not multiply wives, how much more so than any other man. A culture is evident in the biblical text because those were the people God spoke to and through, not because God invented it to be handed down to posterity.]. Second, God permitted polygamy because in a fallen world it offered vulnerable women the opportunity to belong to and build up a household. For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father., Unfortunately Solomon did not heed what the Lord had said and these 700 wives did just what God had warned against; his wives turned away his heart after other gods.. How could it be bad for me if its in the BIBLE? Its actually pretty incredible how often I get this response. Lets start with the obvious points points that anyone who has spent serious time reading the Old Testament would have stumbled upon: 1. I have no interest in debates. I know its a lot of questions and Im sorry haha. This is transparent in the biblical text. Id like to hear your view on this. Advance Ministries Theres nothing. Introduction Joash served the LORD while Jehoida lived; but after his death he turned from the LORD and eventually slew Jehoiadas son, a sin for which he paid with his own life. 3. Permissible (non-violent and consenting) sexual relationships with multiple wives or concubines are not described with either word.