POLYGAMY IN THE BIBLE

Matthew 9:3-8, I Corinthians 7:2, Ephesians 5:22-23

What in the Bible makes people think that God approves of polygamy? There is a dangerous assumption which accompanies many Bible readers and serves as the root of numerous stumbling blocks. It’s the false assumption Scripture condones all behavior recorded in the historical narratives of the Bible, especially if God’s disapproval is not explicitly expressed in the immediate context of the behaviors in question. God allowed David and Solomon to have many wives (I Kings 11:3), but allowance is not the same as approval.

We should not assume that everything done by a godly person in the Bible is automatically approved of by God. The Bible is unique amongst ancient documents in that it presents its heroes as very “human.” David, Solomon, Samuel, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, and others are presented as sinners who, in some cases, committed horrible mistakes. We must look to specific Bible commands and principles, not to individual stories to determine what right behavior is. Genesis 2:24, 25 imply that it was God’s plan all along for one husband to have one wife. In Matthew 19:9, Jesus strongly supports monogamy.

It is very important that we stop viewing the Bible as a rule book. It is not a manual, but a story. It is the story of mankind’s fall from grace and God’s plan to redeem the world. The “rules” the Bible gives us are about the role we play in that redemption.

Studying the Mosaic Law is important for understanding the historical accounts recorded. When God gave Moses the Law, He established the moral and societal parameters within which He expected the nation of Israel to live. When we have a grasp on the Law, we will have the standard by which we are to discern the behavior of the people recorded. God told the Israelites when they selected a king, he was not to have multiple wives (Deuteronomy 17:17). As the Apostle Paul says, the Law served to reveal our sin and shut all people up under sin (Galatians 3:19-22).

Why did God allow men to have more than one wife? The Bible doesn’t specifically say why, so we have to take Biblical principles and extrapolate something elsewhere and apply it to this situation. We cannot assume that all the actions recorded by even the most righteous people in the Bible are condoned by God. We cannot assume that God will always solve such a conundrum for us because often the purpose of the passage was not to teach about the ethics of the situation. In many cases, the Bible presents the facts of history and leaves us to interpret these facts. In such cases, it is up to us to apply biblical principles and common sense to understand the moral implications of the actions of Bible characters.

David was king during a time when there would have been pressure to get married for political reasons. Did God approve of this? No, but he worked within the framework of David’s world and he extended grace to David. Just because polygamy is in the Bible doesn’t mean that God endorses it. God didn’t necessarily punish polygamy, but he didn’t bless it either. There is no example in scripture that a man was blessed because of his polygamy. There was a price to pay for living in polygamy. Every time multiple marriages happen in scripture, strife occurred. God’s grace works in mysterious ways. It was never God’s will for a man to have multiple wives. God’s decree is clear in Genesis 2:24.

Solomon was not struck down for multiple wives. He was struck down for allowing his foreign wives to erect idols to their gods alluding to equal standing to God. God allowed Solomon to make the choice to disobey, but Solomon’s choice brought inevitable consequences (I kings 11:11).

Why does God allow anything that people do that is sinful? He allows it because he gave us free will. This is often seen as the cop-out answer anytime the question of why God allows evil in the world. For people seeking the truth in earnest, it would be disingenuous to ignore any of the relevant factors revealed in Scripture pertaining to this question. David, like all other human beings, was not a robot. He had the capacity to make choices which either adhered to God’s Word or blatantly disobeyed it. It is never God’s will that anyone sin, but He does allow us to make our own choices.

Free will is a tremendous gift given to us by God because it enables our actions to have meaning and purpose; however, we can abuse it to do unspeakable things in pursuit of our selfish ambitions. When it comes to God’s children, Scripture places much emphasis on the importance of making good decisions (Joshua 24:14-15; I Corinthians 10:13). David clearly struggled with this many times. While reading through David’s life, it is evident he did not always make good decisions. In all of Scripture, the life of David may be the most dramatic recorded. No other account in the Bible so vividly captures the heart-wrenching struggle of a sinful man who earnestly sought after the Lord yet failed to measure up.

God does not execute judgment against every sin the moment it is committed, because if he did the human race would be extinct within a matter of minutes. Punishment is built into sin, there are always inevitable consequences. God is gracious, merciful, and long-suffering with people who don’t deserve it. God gives us commandments to guide us so we can be blessed. God patiently works with sinful people who live in a sinful world. God stoops to our level and works with us despite our flaws.

God’s providence is one of the most glorious and mind-blowing truths Scripture reveals about Him. God exercises His power in harmony with our free will (even our sinful decisions) to accomplish His divine purposes. God makes the ultimate mockery of sin by taking our wicked decisions and using them for His good purposes (Genesis 50:20; Romans 8:28). That is not to say it is a good thing when we sin. Rather, God works through the effects of our sin to bring about His purposes, though He still abhors our sinful actions. He will always accomplish exactly what He intends.

 

Sin includes actions taken or behaviors that fall outside the will of God, so from that perspective polygamy is a sinful act that God works for His glory and man’s good. For example, Bathsheba bore Solomon to David, and he was part of Jesus’ genealogy (Matthew 1:6-7). Also, the heinous sin David committed with Bathsheba resulted in David writing Psalm 51, which has long been a refuge for all believers when they have given in to sin and need to repent.

 

Why did God allow polygamy in the Old Testament? The Bible does not specifically say why God allowed polygamy. As we speculate about God’s silence, there is at least one key factor to consider. Due to patriarchal societies, it was nearly impossible for an unmarried woman to provide for herself. Women were often uneducated and untrained. Women relied on their fathers, brothers, and husbands for provision and protection. Unmarried women were often subjected to prostitution and slavery.

 

So, it seems that God may have allowed polygamy to protect and provide for the women who could not find a husband otherwise. A man would take multiple wives and serve as the provider and protector of all of them. While definitely not ideal, living in a polygamist household was far better than the alternatives: prostitution, slavery, or starvation. In addition to the protection/provision factor, polygamy enabled a much faster expansion of humanity, fulfilling God’s command to “be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth” (Genesis 9:7).

 

Why did it change? It is not so much God’s disallowing something He previously allowed as it is God’s restoring marriage to His original plan (Matt. 19:8). Even going back to Adam and Eve, polygamy was not God’s original intent (Genesis 2:24). God seems to have allowed polygamy to solve a problem, but it is not the ideal. The Bible presents monogamy as the plan that conforms most closely to God’s ideal for marriage.

God did allow divorce in the Old Testament, but it wasn’t because divorce was something He approved of. Rather, it was something He allowed because man’s hearts were hard. They were still slaves to sin and the flesh. Obviously, after the fall, God made a temporary adjustment to the system of marriage because humans were incapable of the monogamous lifelong coupling He intended at the beginning. We can apply these same criteria to polygamy.

It wouldn’t be the first time God amended his original intent due to the hardness of people’s hearts. Remember, it was never His intention for anyone but Him to rule over the Israelites (1 Samuel 8:4-22). But due to the hardness of their hearts, God allowed them to have a human king to rule over them.

In Deuteronomy 17:17, God says that the kings were not supposed to multiply wives. Therefore, why did God give David the wives of Saul? The answer can be found II Samuel 12:8 where we are informed that God gave David all of Saul’s possessions: Saul’s house, his wives, and the kingdom. He gave David Saul’s wife to care for. It is important to know that the Hebrew word for “care” is rarely used in the Old Testament to refer to sexual intercourse. Scripture does not support the conclusion that David actually married any of Saul’s wives nor had children by them. What is clear is that God gave to David Saul’s widows for the purpose of providing financial support and care for them.

The Bible mentions that David and Solomon had concubines. In the Old Testament, a concubine was different than the modern day concubine. In the Old Testament, a concubine was legally a second-class wife (Judges 19:1-5). A concubine was not a kept mistress and did not cohabit with a man unless married to him. Today’s definition of a concubine is a mistress, a woman who is not married to a man and provides him sexual activity.

God recorded David’s polygamous lifestyle for our instruction and encouragement. In his epistle to the Romans, Paul mentions the edifying nature of the entire Old Testament stating, “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scripture we might have hope” (Romans 15:4). Regarding David’s and Solomon’s wives, we have a grim reminder of what happens when we neglect to live as God commands. Their family life was by far their biggest failure. The complex families they had were the source of much sorrow and strife. We can learn much from their mistakes. Also, we find hope. If God remained faithful to David and Solomon in spite of their failings, we can rest assured He will remain faithful to us despite ours.

So, to bring this back around to the original question of where the Bible says a man can marry multiple wives, the answer is that it says no such thing. More importantly, though, the Bible says that we ought to seek the Kingdom of God first, and God’s Kingdom is one in which a man leaves his father and mother, clings to his wife, and they become one. This is the blueprint we are to follow.