05-10-2022, 09:57 PM
This thread seems a plausible place to ask the following follow-up question.
If God intended for our marriage experience to be one man, one woman, for life, why are the instances of men with multiple concurrent wives not called out more clearly as "wrong".
On the one hand I think of several instances where it worked out poorly: Abraham, Jacob, Samuel's dad, Solomon. There is even Jewish/Hebrew law that says a man should not take his wife's sister as a marriage partner while his wife is still alive, but that seems to be a narrow law to me, not prohibiting all multiple-concurrent-wife situations.
But then on the other hand we have David with multiple wives, and he was called a man after God's heart, and his only named failure was Uriah and Bathsheba (which was adultery and then murder - 2 Samuel 12:7-13).
In none of these instances, with "good" or "bad" results, are any of these men called out for the "sin" of having a second wife as far as I know.
What gives?
If God intended for our marriage experience to be one man, one woman, for life, why are the instances of men with multiple concurrent wives not called out more clearly as "wrong".
On the one hand I think of several instances where it worked out poorly: Abraham, Jacob, Samuel's dad, Solomon. There is even Jewish/Hebrew law that says a man should not take his wife's sister as a marriage partner while his wife is still alive, but that seems to be a narrow law to me, not prohibiting all multiple-concurrent-wife situations.
But then on the other hand we have David with multiple wives, and he was called a man after God's heart, and his only named failure was Uriah and Bathsheba (which was adultery and then murder - 2 Samuel 12:7-13).
In none of these instances, with "good" or "bad" results, are any of these men called out for the "sin" of having a second wife as far as I know.
What gives?
Benjamin