{"id":15910,"date":"2025-08-14T10:39:28","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T15:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/?p=15910"},"modified":"2025-08-15T10:41:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T15:41:24","slug":"old-testament-men-having-multiple-wives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/15910\/old-testament-men-having-multiple-wives\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Testament men having multiple wives"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I have been reading through the Old Testament books of the Bible, I have realized (not for the first time) that apparently it was commonplace among God’s people for men to have several wives and even concubines. I am right now in 2 Samuel, and I just read a list of David’s sons that were born from different women, all of whom were David’s wives (chapter 3). But Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, too, all had more than one wife, as did many others among Old Testament men of God.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What doesn’t seem clear to me from my readings is how God felt about all this. The text doesn’t suggest, as far as I can tell, that He disapproved of His servants having multiple wives. Why is that? Is it one of those things where people of that time were ignorant of God’s will in this specific area of their lives, and God “overlooked” it (cf. Acts 17:30)?<\/span><\/p>\n

Could you please give some clarity on this?<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you!<\/span><\/p>\n

Zoli<\/span><\/p>\n

========<\/span><\/p>\n

Hi Zoli.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Having multiple wives was just a cultural phenomenon.\u00a0 There was no sin involved.\u00a0 It was the same with having slaves.\u00a0 The righteous as well as the wicked might have slaves and\/or multiple wives if they could afford to do so.\u00a0 Of course, the righteous were good masters to all their slaves and good husbands to their wives and father’s to their children.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

We run the risk of condemning righteous souls if we judge them by the cultural standards of our own time.\u00a0 Abraham, for example, was the “friend” of God (Jas. 2:23), and he had many slaves, and David was a man after God’s own heart (1Sam. 13:14), but he had several wives.\u00a0 So, we must leave all judgment of ancient people to God, and strive to do God’s will in the cultural conditions into which we ourselves have been born.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Pastor John<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I have been reading through the Old Testament books of the Bible, I have realized (not for the first time) that apparently it was commonplace among God’s people for men to have several wives and even concubines. I am right now in 2 Samuel, and I just read a list of David’s sons that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15910"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15910"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15911,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15910\/revisions\/15911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}