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Transcript 266C — Polygamy in Old Testament Times
CALLER: I was reading in Genesis about concubines. And I think that the Bible teaches that when we become saved, we can't live a life of sin, continuously, because the Holy Spirit will deal with us, to cause us to repent. I was curious. In the Old Testament you see a lot of these people, like Jacob, and so forth, who seemed to have other wives. Did God allow that because the whole Bible wasn't revealed, and they didn't know as much as we do? Just how would that work, if these people were saved like we are today? Does that make any sense? Could you deal with that a little bit?
HC: Yes. The question is raised concerning the matter of multiple wives, or concubines, as we read of it particularly in the Old Testament. How is this to be understood? Were they less knowledgeable of the will of God, or just what was it?
First of all, we must remember that multiple wives was not common. It is true that we read of some who had multiple wives. But they're really in the minority. We really have to remember that. Sometimes we read about a few individuals, and we think this was very common.
Look, for example, at Noah. Or let's go back to Adam and Eve. How many wives did Adam have? He had one wife, Eve. Noah, how many wives did he have? One wife. His three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, how many wives did they have? One each. You see, there were a total of eight people on the ark, four men and four women.
We come to Abraham. How many wives did he have? Well, essentially he had one, Sarah. It is true that in a moment of a lack of faith he adopted a custom of some of the nations around there, and he allowed Hagar to bear a son, Ishmael. And I'll mention in a moment why I think this occurred.
But essentially he had one wife. And after Sarah died, he married a concubine, Keturah. And that's all we read. He didn't marry additional concubines. We get to Isaac. He had one wife, Rebecca.
Now it's true that Jacob married two wives and two concubines. He was tricked into the first multiple marriage, because he had worked for Rachel, and his uncle Laban gave him Leah instead, to wife. And then, by working another seven years, Uncle Laban threw Rachel into the marriage deal.
But the other thing we must remember, also, is that Jacob at this time was probably an unsaved man. There's a lot of evidence to point to the fact that he actually did not become saved until he wrestled with God at the River Jabbok. And at that time he was leaving his Uncle Laban. He was at that time a hundred years of age. He was a much older man.
But anyway, he did have two wives and two concubines. Now we go to the sons of Jacob, and we read very little about multiple wives. We read of Joseph. He only had one wife. We read of Moses. He had one wife, Zipporah. We read, as we go through the Bible, ordinarily of one wife.
But there are two or three outstanding illustrations of multiple wives. One is King David. He began to follow the practice of some of the eastern potentates of that day, and began to cultivate a small harem. This was greatly multiplied by Solomon, who ended up with 700 wives and 300 concubines. Now these really are the outstanding illustrations in the Bible of multiple wives.
There may be a few others, but they're quite incidental. But most of the personalities presented on the pages of the Bible had one wife. And this is the way God had it from the beginning.
Now let's back up and see, perhaps, why it was that God permitted this. Certainly, to have multiple wives was not in the will of God. The fact is, in the Book of Deuteronomy, in relationship to the kings, David and Solomon, God had warned that when you have kings over you, make sure that they do not multiply wives.
Why did God permit this? Well, I think, first of all, that He permitted it in order to develop and produce for us the Holy Word of God. You see, the Bible is a statement of certain experiences, and phrases that individuals spoke, that were carefully chosen by God in order that we might understand salvation. Out of the millions upon millions of experiences and sentences and speeches that were made and experienced by all of these characters in the Old Testament, God selected certain words, certain phrases, and certain experiences. And these became the Holy Canon.
Now at times they revealed the sin of man. But through these God is still showing His salvation. Now let's take, for example, the matter of Abraham with Hagar. Now certainly this was sinful on Abraham's part. It indicated that his trust was wavering, that God would provide a seed for him, although the pressures were very severe, because both he and Sarah (or at least Sarah) was beyond the age of child-bearing. And Abraham had become a very old man himself. And yet there was no seed.
And so God allowed him to proceed in this sinful direction of producing a seed, a son, by his Egyptian slave, Hagar. But God used that sinful act of Abraham as an experience to teach an aspect of salvation. And if you go to Galatians, I believe it is, you will find that Hagar is referred to as an equivalent of the covenant on Mount Sinai. And that's another subject all by itself, and we won't get into it right now. But God utilized that sinful experience of Abraham in order to magnify an aspect of the nature of salvation.
Now the same is true in the case of Solomon. Now Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Actually, Solomon was a figure of Christ Himself in many many ways. And those 700 wives and those 300 concubines are two perfect numbers. Seven is the number of perfection, and three is the number of God Himself. Ten, the sum of these two, is the number of completeness. In these numbers God is indicating the perfection, the completeness, the God-like qualities of the church, of which God is the Bridegroom, even as Solomon was the groom and these were the bride.
God is teaching, through these experiences, even some of these sinful experiences, aspects of the nature of salvation. Now incidentally, Solomon didn't get away with this, of course. He violated God's command concerning multiplying wives, and it's these very wives in his old age that caused him to begin to worship other gods. And as a result of this sin, the kingdom was taken away from him. At his death his son was allowed only two of the twelve tribes, and this was only because of God's promise to David, rather than to Solomon. And so that sinful act ended up in a great and terrible defeat.
Moreover, David's multiplication of wives also ended up in great harm for David. For example, we see Absalom ravishing David's ten concubines. And we see the fact that he could multiply wives caused him to commit adultery with Bathsheba and caused her husband to be murdered.