Polygamy – Does God Endorse Polygamy?
If God is opposed to polygamy, why does 2 Samuel 12:8 say that God gave David wives? Alan Shlemon responds.
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Genesis 2:24 says nothing about how many wives God intends for a man to have! It only states that when he marries his first wife, he must leave his father and mother! If your definition held true, then it would be a sin to marry another woman when your wife dies. Jesus did not quote that defintion either. This is patantly false! He was speaking of the unity of marriage, not the quantity of wives. When did Jesus EVER say ANYTHING that comes close to your claim that Jesus held that monogamous marriage is a God ordained institution? You are reading into the text. Classic Eisegesis on your part!
God making only one wife for adam, was DESCRIPTIVE, not prescriptive, so you are inconsistent in your approach to Scripture.
God DID condone polgamy! Read Psalms 18:20-24. David wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that he had clean hands! So do you recall how many wives he had at the time of Saul's death??? Well, there was Mical, Abigail, and Ahinoam. That is three by my count! Also, God told Abimelech that his attempt to take Sarah as his second wife, was done so in the integrity of his heart. Now do you suppose Abimelech did not realize he already had a wife???? Not to mention that Jehoida brings Joash two wives, and Scripture clearly says that he did was was right before God and Israel!
Men were required in Scripture to marry the widow of their brothers, and when it says dwell together, if one of the brother's had a wife, why would the other brother not have one? There is nothing in that text that indicates that the living brother would not have a wife? Boaz approached the nearer kinsman redeemer, even though he already had a wife, because Ruth's brother in law had also died. Also if a man defiled a virgin, God commanded him to take her to be his wife, and there is no exception there for the man who already had a wife!
NOWHERE in Scirpture does it day that the Almighty didn't intend for polygamy and that He only "tolerated it"!!! This is a flat out LIE! Divorce was permitted because of the hardness of the hearts, but that has absolutely nothing to do with polygamy! NOTHING! Divorce is ENDING a marriage, whereas polygamy is ADDING to a marriage! Get that through your thick skull!!!
Deuteronomy 17:17 is not a prohibition against having more than one wife. You are a LIAR!!!! Have you ever recommended having someone thrown out of your church because he had more than one horse? You have such an inconsistent approach to hermeneutics. Deut 17:17 is about the king taking too many wives as was the case with Solomon. Those wives turned Solomon's heart away from following God, and Deut 17 predicted they would. Solomon also accumlated horses and gold, as Det 17 warns against. So Deut 17 is a warning, not a command, and it comes nowhere close to saying what you claimed that it says. You said it because you though you would go unchallenged, and that is called "LYING"!!!
Lev 18:17 forbids having SEX with a woman and her daughter. Enough said!
God didn't give Absalom David's wives. He gave him his concubines. Enough said!
God did NOT say that He gave his master's wives into his care! Again, this is a lie! It says , "into your bosom"!!! This is the EXACT SAME EXPRESSION Sarah used when she said that she had given Hagar into Abraham's BOSOM! Now go ahead and try to twist that Scripture into meaning that she only gave Hagar to Abraham to take care of her! I dare you!
What Scripture are you referring to when you say that this would often happen where the king would inherit another king's wives? You did not cite ONE example! David had no such expectation! If anyone did, it would have been Ish-Bosheth or Mephibosheth. Not only that, but the "master" could also be a reference to Naboth who died and left behind Abigail and Ahinoam. Why all of the sudden do we get a mention of David marrying Ahinoam at the same time he married Abigail? Sure she could have been some random woman he picked up while he was avoiding her hometown, lest they turn him over to Saul, but that is quite a stretch!
The concubines were the ones that Absalom had slept with! You left out that detail! Of course, you said that God gave Absalom David's wives, perhaps to obscure the fact that they were they SAME CONCUBINES that David put away!!! That is pure deception!
We should NEVER ask the question if God is a moral monster. This is BLASPHEMY! We are in no position to judge God Almighty by our standards!!! How DARE YOU refer to that BLASPHEMOUS book!!!!!
God allows all kinds of things to happen. All kinds of sick things happen in the world. Does that make them all ok. NO!
Wow thanks for thus explanation
"Is God in favor of polygamy?"
Short Answer: No.
Long Answer: Noooooooooooooooooo.
The last bit is super interesting.
Deuteronomy 21:15 Proves that polygamy is not a sin.
God seems to endorse whatever the republican party endoreses.
Why could not a woman have many husbands at once if men were allowed many wives, if God is fair? If there is 50% males & 50% females on the planet and you have males taking multiple femele partners, as in the Bible, will that not then leave some males without enough females?
Funny that Yeshua, before His given Name Yeshua was changed by the Gentiles into "Jesus," never had the need for any females at all as the perfect example of how to live a life before God.
3:02 – "So God is opposed to polygamy" … WHAT? You quite literally haven't proven that in any way and you're just making a bold statement speaking directly for God where God never said any such thing. Yikes.
2:18 – And He also said he would have given David MORE of all things like these, aka, wives, if he had asked. Noticed you skipped that part.
2:10 – God didn't punish David for multiple wives, He punished him for taking another man's wife. Come on man, this is elementary stuff.
1:30 – No Deut 17:17 does not forbid kings from marrying more than 1 wife, any more than it forbids them from having 1 gold silver or horse. It forbids them from "multiplying" those things… ie: hording them. This is really common teaching, but it's really wrong, and more specifically it was really about foreign wives for kings, as in treaty-wives with other pagan nations.
1:13 – Exactly Jesus told us directly God "TOLERATED DIVORCE/SENDING AWAY", He never once made the same statement regarding polygyny. YOU did.
1:03 – YOU believe God tolerated it, which is YOU adding to the word what isn't there. God did not tell us He merely "tolerated it". God blessed it and commanded it in some cases. Stop adding to the word.
00:48 – ah the tired old "many parts are descriptive not prescriptive" trope. IMAGINE my shock. You just used the creation story to claim monogamy-only is the *prescription*, but wouldn't that be "descriptive not prescriptive" as well by your logic?
00:40 – Jesus was merely saying that MARRIAGE is a God ordained institution, He NEVER said the word monogamous, ever. He wasn't limiting a man to 1 wife, He was quoting scripture in discussing divorce, you're reading into the text a limitation that was not put there. A man would have to leave his father and mother, cleave to (A) wife, before ever taking on a 2nd or 3rd+ wife in separate unions. God wants a man to find a wife, but He did not limit him to 1, not once not ever.
00:27 – Any biblically polygynous man with more than 1 wife, has multiple 1 man 1 woman covenants (marriages) and appealing to the creation story to claim 1 was the limit is a fallacy. If 1 is the limit, then it's also a limitation that she has to be created directly from our rib as men, specifically for us by God.
When Jesus referred to the creation he was discussing divorce and why we shouldn't, except for 1 exception. Because it wasn't meant to be that way. He was not in any way speaking on a man covering more than 1 wife.
1Kings 15: 5 because David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and had not turned aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of [the betrayal of] Uriah the Hittite.
This is showing that from God's eyes, David did not do anything wrong when he took concubines and wives as written in 1Samuel 5:13, except when he killed Uriah the Hittite and took his wife. The Lord God found David righteous. That is why he could said in 2Samuel 12: 8 what he said through the mouth of Nathan. God really gave David the wives of Saul. Please don't try to twist the Word. Thanks
And David knew that the Lord had established him as king over Israel, and that He had exalted his kingdom for His people Israel’s sake.
13 David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem, after he came from Hebron; and more sons and daughters were born to him.
That is a bold face lie. Jesus did no such thing in Mathew 19 or anywhere else for that matter.
At 1:02 you say God tolerated but did not condone it. I would say you are wrong. God told David why did you take Bathsheba. God said I gave you your wives and would have given you more if you would have asked.
This doesn’t seem like God just allowed it. He actively entered into it. I guess you’re trying to say David didn’t consummate the wives God gave him. You would have to prove that a biblical marriage does not include consummation. I doubt you will be able to
God commanded it in the case of some levirate marriages. It made no difference to God if the brother was married or not. He still had to take his deceased brother’s wife if they had no children.
Thank u for your take on this subject.