Ask the Pastor: Was It a Sin for David and Solomon to Have Multiple Wives?
Ask the Pastor is a regular column at Every Reason to Believe where pastor Reagan Marsh answers a variety of reader questions about ministry, Christianity, the church, and more… all from the perspective of the pulpit. You can find all of his articles here.
Was it a sin for David (and Solomon) to have multiple wives/concubines? Why was David punished for Bathsheba when he had all the other women? Isn’t marriage 1 man + 1 woman? Is there inconsistency in this? What about Polygamy and the Bible?
Introduction – Biblical Marriage
First we have to understand that David’s and Solomon’s marital situations, complexities, and sins were the precise fulfillment of what God had warned would happen if Israel failed to destroy the godless nations in the promised land: they would “learn their ways” (Deut. 12:30) and become like them.
As 1 Corinthians 15:33 warns, “bad company ruins good morals.”
“In Genesis 2:24-25, Moses speaks of a man “cleaving to his wife” (singular), and “the two becoming one flesh.”
So, to the question: Yes, it was sin for them to have multiple wives/concubines.
In Genesis 2:24-25, Moses speaks of a man “cleaving to his wife” (singular), and “the two becoming one flesh.”
Ephesians 5:22-33 speaks in lockstep with Genesis 2 when Paul describes a wife (singular) and a husband (singular).
The New Testament further shows that the pattern for Christian marriage is to be exemplified in an elder’s life, specifically in that he is to be “the husband of one wife” (1 Tim. 3:1-7).
David and Bathsheba
David was punished in the Bathsheba account (2 Sam. 11) because his sins were lust, seducing her to marital unfaithfulness, committing adultery, abusing and misusing power entrusted to him for others’ wellbeing, committing murder, and involving others in his own sins.
It’s worth noting that the Hebrew is suggestive that he may have forced her against her will (i.e., not merely seduction, but possibly sexual assault).
A great deal of the civil unrest in Israel at the time was not merely circumstantial, but judicial—God’s punishment of David’s sin with the other women.
“David’s punishment with Bathsheba, then, was because he despised his own marital covenant(s), and hers.”
His own family was deeply affected by his sin (for example, the shame of Amnon raping Tamar, and Absalom murdering Amnon in revenge…like father, like sons).
When Absalom rebelled and David fled, leaving ten concubines behind to defend the palace, David’s shame was complete: the giant-slayer who had killed his ten thousands was on the run from an out-of-control teenager.
This, in part, is why Solomon later wrote, “Discipline your son, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to his death” (Prov. 19:18).
David’s punishment with Bathsheba, then, was because he despised his own marital covenant(s), and hers; and that cheapening of what God ordains and consecrates between a man and his wife carried disastrous results.
David had “learned the ways of the godless nations,” and decided to live like a king (cp. 1 Sam. 8:10-18) rather than a servant of God and the people.
Conclusion
Having multiple wives in Scripture is reported, but never approved; it’s generally a sign of one being led by lust, who is not “disciplining himself for the purpose of godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7-8).
The “man after God’s own heart” was following his own heart (see Jer. 9:12-14), which led him straight into ruin; and when Solomon came to power, he followed the same course—with the result that his foreign wives led him astray from the Lord (1 Kings 11:3).
Such inconsistency is par for the course with man, but not God.
“Having multiple wives in Scripture is reported, but never approved; it’s generally a sign of one being led by lust, who is not disciplining himself for the purpose of godliness.”
God is patient with our sin and theirs, but his patience is not forever; even the best of men require a Savior from their sin.
We have him in the Christ who was Son of David (Matt. 21:9) and Son of God (Matt. 27:54)—the faithful husband-King who is far greater than Solomon (Matt. 12:42).
Jesus is the proof of God’s holy commitment to “save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21).
He will one day receive us as his radiant, blood-washed bride, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, holy and without blemish (Eph. 5:27); and we will be with him forever.
Whatever wicked men may do, Jesus doesn’t have “friends with benefits,” and he doesn’t take two wives.
Christians may rest secure in his faithful covenant love.
Reagan Marsh, MATS, MDiv (eq.) is founding pastor-teacher to Reformation Baptist Church of Dalton, GA. A certified biblical counselor, Reagan took MATS and MDiv study at NOBTS and SBTS, and is a ThM candidate at CBTS researching Hercules Collins’s pastoral theology under Tom Nettles. He has served in gospel ministry since 1998 and he writes and contributes to numerous Christian publications.
Image Credit: The Greek Lovers by Henry Peters Gray (American, 1846) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 02.7.2.