Because his son Absalom slept with all of them (in public view).
It was lawful for the King, and for him only, to marry his predecessor’s wives. That David actually married any of Saul’s wives does not appear. Only one wife and one concubine of Saul’s are mentioned. See 1 Samuel 14:50 & 2 Samuel 3:7.
So tell me, what did Solomon do with all his concubines?
Closely resembled Muslim faith at one time.
God does not endorse OT politics. He lets the narrative show the good and bad.
Jesus answered the question when they tried to trap him the way this query does. Atheists give God bad grades whenever they can. Jesus said simply (on a slightly different conundrum): “From the beginning it was not so. Because of the hardness of your hearts God granted divorcement.”
So God has had to put up with hard hearts from people who purport to love and obey Him, and from people who want to give Him bad grades.
People forget, though, He is the only one with the Red Pen.
We are not under the Old Covenant. Jesus brought in the New Covenant, and He stated one man/one woman for marriage. And no divorce unless one spouse is unfaithful.
Are you a Mormon?
I don’t give a crap what anyone says including this fake “god “. This moron is talking about
Who the hell would want two wives ? Nightmare !
Why didn’t Adam have more than Eve? Why was Mary Josephs only wife?
Adam had one wife. Noah also. Every example in the OT, of mutiple wives, shows that it doesn’t make life better for all parties involved, quite the opposite. Even Abraham had just one wife; only marrying again after her death (the one BIG mistake was him obeying Sarah’s request that he lay with her handmaid Hagar). Isaac had one wife. Jacob only wanted Rachel, but was tricked into marrying Leah first. It seems that his son Joseph just had one wife.
I’ve balanced multiple women...it gets complicated fast
I can’t fathom multiple wives
This is what mistresses are for...duh
Even good women can be extremely difficult
My father, who was always quite traditional in such matters, threw his television out after 13 months of “news” coverage about Clinton, his cigar, Monica, her dress, and the Oral Office. What was interesting was his comment, “as long as the damned political hacks are busy screwing their aides, they’re distracted from screwing our country !”
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“it appears God allowed polygamy to occur.”
Reads like a statement from a freshman in high school.
News flash. The New Testament is the new and superior to the old one.
It’s good to be King
Maybe it’s a test. You know, like he did with Job.
After Samson visited a prostitute, I’ve given some thought
to the gender distribution in the foxes he tied together
and set afire afterwards.
He must have had a proven result in mind for effectiveness.
Yawn. This topic is boring. Can’t this be discussed in the Bible Thumpers section?
Two wives? At the same time?
Thanks. No.
Without polygamy, very high mortality among young men produces large numbers of young widows and young women with no prospects for marriage. These women might be bartered as trade goods outside the tribe. Or they might become prostitutes. At best, they might look forward to a life as a servant woman, and possibly concubinage. This is not a satisfactory solution, either for the young women themselves or their families.
In addition, in small tribal groups, high fertility is essential in times of incessant warfare to replace losses and maintain the fighting strength of the tribe. Shelving large numbers of young women would be tribal suicide.
Tribal elders, parents, brothers and all concerned would want these young women to have licit and honorable places in the society. They would want them to have lawful children. Polygamy is the usual answer. The acceptance of polygamy has a downside in that it opens the door to wealthy and powerful men who collect women for sport and build harems, but focusing on the abuses in the elite classes is looking at the wrong end of the problem. The large harems were always few and far between. The real question is what to do with the 17 year old widow whose husband was killed on the last raid; she's still young enough to be sexually attractive and a good catch, but half the young men in her appropriate age range have already been killed and the rest are already married. Or the older woman of maybe 25 with two or three young children whose husband is killed: she and her children face destitution, and becoming a second or third wife to a man who can provide a home is a good option.
Polygamy falls out of favor when polities grow larger, when the hostile tribes are beyond a border that is a couple of hundred miles away, and when a society develops a political and warrior class sufficient in normal circumstances to secure physical safety. Mortality from violence declines sharply. The gender ratio among young adults normalizes. Polygamy, formerly a solution to a real problem, then becomes a major problem itself. If practiced on a large scale, a narrow class of wealthier men obtains control of a disproportionate number of the young women, leaving large numbers of young men with no hope of a normal marriage. In Muslim societies, these are the young men who become holy warriors. Jihad has always been very largely about bringing home young women for sex slavery, and if that doesn't work out, the martyr gets his 72 virgins in Allahland. For a 19 year old man who has seen the last eligible young women in his village swept into polygamous marriages with rich older men, jihad starts to look attractive.