How many wives is best? S29e49 Dt21:10

So how many wives is best?  The answer is ONE, but it is a little more complicated than that.  Polygamy is mentioned and acknowledged in the Bible, but it is never endorsed.

What about the women who are spared from the destruction of their cities in war? What about the children and their inheritance for those with two wives.  It is complicated, but join me for 7 minutes while we don't ignore it. 

https://youtu.be/S5WMIe_NAVY

Transcript

How many wives is best? S29e49 Dt21:10

Tricky topic of how to support the female captives. Could marriage have a role?

10 “When you go out to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God gives them into your hand and you take them captive, 11 and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire to take her to be your wife, 12 and you bring her home to your house, she shall shave her head and pare her nails. 13 And she shall take off the clothes in which she was captured and shall remain in your house and lament her father and her mother a full month. After that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. 14 But if you no longer delight in her, you shall let her go where she wants. But you shall not sell her for money, nor shall you treat her as a slave, since you have humiliated her. How are women from other conquered cultures supported. Is rape or adultery allowed?

Her previous husband has been killed in battle.

Wife is Husbandless. Children is fatherless

Giving home. Clothing. Time to mourn Husband. Not treating her as a slave.

Benefits: lifesaving provision in the codes of war. This is a war-bride.

         Has her survival. Also has grief regarding what she has lost.

         Alternatives are death, slavery, starvation, prostitution or here: marriage. Family. Husband. Wife.. Certainly can make argument this is on the whole a protection for her and any attached children

         Perhaps Concession to sinful man, is to allow it with responsibilities

         Doesn’t mean that God is pleased with the practice of polygamy

         Practically, having multiple wives comes with some benefits- relational, sexual, survival, but also with responsibilities. 

Started with Lamech, six generations from Adam to Babylonian exiled 586bc.

         Polygamy is allowed, but not endorsed

                  Certainly the Lord is trying to make a holy people

                  They never quite get there until a perfect Savior has arrived

         If it is going to be practiced, it is not going to be practiced without responsibilities of provision. 

God’ s ideal for marriage isGen 3:  24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 

Lots of arguments, biblically against Polygamy: 

1.         He invented the institution and made it ONE man and ONE woman

2.   One flesh, not one fleshes

3.   Leave your one father and one mother Gen 2 one time not multiple times

4.   Earlier, in Genesis: Adam and Eve, is singular

5.   OT heros of one wife: Noah, Job, Isaac, Moses, Joseph and Mary

6.   Solomon stands as a good example of what NOT to do

7.   just because ethe bible mentions it, doesn’t mean that He condones it

a.                      to cite the practice is not to approve the practice

8.   It is denounced in God’s leaders in the NT requires marriage, forbids polygamy 1 Tim 3Elders in your congregation: 2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife,

9.Jesus reinforces the one man one wife and no divorce in Mt 19

        12.Though bible does not expressly prohibit polygamy, it does negatively treat it

Singular wife is the ideal, and the design. Clarified in the NT 1 Cor 7: 2 But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. Singular. WHY? With two wives you will have problems:

Firstborn inheritance

15 “If a man has two wives, the one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have borne him children, and if the firstborn son belongs to the unloved, 16 then on the day when he assigns his possessions as an inheritance to his sons, he may not treat the son of the loved as the firstborn in preferenceto the son of the unloved, who is the firstborn, 17 but he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the firstfruits of his strength. The right of the firstborn is his.

Assumes Polygamy.  Does not condone it. it does negatively treat it:

Inheritance of the loved (mothers kids). Inheritance of the unloved (mothers kids ).

What is a problem of polygamy? 

Comparison. Affection will always be different towards different people. Two wives. Two levels of affection.  –practical expressions of that affection $

What if the unloved is the first born?

Do my current affections supercede the rights of the firstborn?

         The kid here is innocent. He has nothing to do with when he was born 

         He didn’t make the rules about the value of the firstborn

         It is not his fault you married two women and therefore took on the responsibility of child supporting

On the day when he assigns his possessions, you cannot treat the son of the loved, the second born as the first born. Responsibilities come with marri.

Must acknowledge the first born, son of the unloved

Give the firstborn a double portion

He is the firstborn. He is the firstfruits of your strength

Birthright was of particular value. In this case double value

Polygamy: watch how the bible mentions it, allows it, does not condone it or endorse it, and here speaks against it.

How many wives is best? One. Or there will be problems.