What does the Bible Teach About Polygamy (and why it matters)?
Introduction
Among evangelicals, there has long existed a vague unanimity that polygamy was wrong. There was a hazy notion of the varied examples of it in Scripture, but it was nothing more than a preposterous proposition. If one wife is a tantalizing riddle, what must 1000 wives be?
In Scripture, polygamy is more than an accidental misfortune of exceptional times. It’s more than solemn foolery. It’s more than mere dregs of melodramatic or connubial visions. The polygamy of one kind was a type of another kind, and in this way, it’s a bigger part of the story than one would think. It was Israel’s growing and ongoing practice of polygamy that beggared and enslaved them to the high places of the gods. But we are running ahead. We’ll demonstrate these conclusions in due course.
Before exploring what the Bible says about the subject, we must establish the standard against which everything is measured. This takes us to a time before Sinai, to a time before the Fall. Genesis 2:24 says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” The grammar is singular throughout. “A man,” not men. “His wife,” not wives. Interestingly, the Hebrew word echad, translated as one, is also part of the Shema. Just like “the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Dt. 6:4), so too is marriage where two become one. The oneness of marriage relates to the oneness of God, and as we will see, it points forward to the exclusive covenant between Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:31-32). With that baseline, we are prepared to conduct a biblical survey of polygamy.
Old Testament Survey of Polygamy
The first reference to polygamy is when Lamech, the descendant of Cain, takes two wives, Adah and Zillah. Lamech is a man of violence (Gen. 4:23) who intentionally takes after his ancestor, Cain (Gen. 4:24). So, polygamy enters the biblical story through the chronicle of a killer. There is no moral footnote that spells it out: “Lamech’s polygamy was wrong.” That would be too obvious. The embedded actions of a wicked loggerhead in a narrative context point to a leitmotif that polygamy is always a miasmic event.
The narrative of the Patriarchs is more complicated. Abraham took a wife named Sarai, who then proceeded to give her Egyptian servant, Hagar, to Abraham “as a wife” (Gen. 16:3). One would hope that was the end of the flummery. But, alas, Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, was deceived into marrying the wrong woman, Leah. So he works another seven years to marry the right woman, Rachel (Gen. 29:15-30). Troubles mount in the household of multiple wives. Leah gives birth, but Jacob’s beloved, Rachel, is barren. So, Rachel gives her servant Bilhah to Jacob as a wife, and she bears Dan and Naphtali (Gen. 30:1-8) on Rachel’s behalf. Not to be one-upped, Leah gives her servant Zilpah to Jacob, and she bears Gad and Asher (Gen. 30:9-13) on Leah’s behalf.
Abraham’s other grandson, Esau, takes multiple wives, Judith and Basemath, both Hittites (Gen. 26:34), and Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael (Gen. 28:9). Esau’s other wives are mentioned in Genesis 36:1-5. They are named Adah, a Hittite, and Oholibamah, a Hivite.
Here we have Abraham and Jacob, the heroes of the faith, practicing polygamy. God blessed the Patriarchs throughout their lives. Does that mean God was blessing polygamy? Reflecting on the Patriarchal narratives, polygamy does not emerge as the happy bliss of moral purity. Abraham’s marriage of Hagar is about rivalry (Gen. 21:9), expulsion (Gen. 21:10), displeasure (Gen. 21:11), and tears (Gen. 21:16). Jacob’s marriage to two sisters, and then the sister’s servants, is marked by envy (Gen. 29:26, 30; Gen. 30:1), hatred (Ge. 29:31), rivalry (Gen. 29:34; 30:8), anger (Gen. 30:2), and manipulation (Gen. 30:14-17). And all this strife carried into the relationship of Jacob’s children. Remember that Joseph was nearly murdered by his brothers. This is a dysfunctional polygamous household. The lesson is plain: When the creational norm is violated, sin is multiplied.
Then comes the Mosaic Law. Deuteronomy 17:17 restricts kings from having multiple wives. Deuteronomy 21:15-17 regulates a situation where a man finds himself married to two women, one he loves and one he doesn’t love. If the unloved wife bears his firstborn son, he may not deprive the firstborn son of his inheritance. This law assumes polygamy has been occurring and sets out to govern it, without explicitly endorsing it. In Deuteronomy 25:5-10, a man must marry his dead brother’s wife if they all dwelled together. The regulation is silent on whether this applies even if the brother was already married. Leviticus 18:18 says, “And you shall not take a woman as a rival wife to her sister, uncovering her nakedness while her sister is still alive.” Notice the problem with polygamy. It invites rivalry into the household, something that is true whether the wives are sisters or not, as 1 Samuel 1:1-8 illustrates. In other words, a bad wife is better than a good haraam.
It wouldn’t be right to conclude that the Mosaic law approves of polygamy. God’s law regulates it, which is different from supporting it. Just like God regulates divorce without approving of it (Dt. 24; Mt. 19:8), God establishes guardrails to protect the vulnerable within the pestiferous situation of polygamy. Providing merciful protections within the muddle is hardly a blueprint for a faultless design. It’s revealing that the king is forbidden from marrying multiple wives (Dt. 17:17). He is supposed to be the leader, the model that the people follow.
The historical books provide several more examples of polygamy. In Judges 8:29-32, Gideon has two names and many wives. When he is called Jerubbaal, the son of Joash, in Judges 8:29, he lives in his own house rather than a palace. He is resisting Baal by resisting the tendency to become a totalitarian king. But when he is called Gideon in Judges 8:30, he has 70 sons. In Scripture, the number 70 points to the nations of the world (Genesis 10; Judges 1:7), and Gideon’s 70 sons come from his many wives.
In Judges 10 – 12, polygamy is implied by the description of fecundity attributed to Jair the Gileadite (Judges 10:3f); Ibzan of Bethlehem (Judges 12:8f), and Abdon (Judges 12:13f). These leaders of Israel operated above the law, ignoring God’s disapproval of polygamy. It’s after the failure of the Judges that God’s people wish for a king. But their first monarch, Saul, takes a concubine (2 Sam. 3:7) and foreshadows the royal polygamy that plagues Israel’s future.
The royal history of Israel is where polygamy reaches catastrophic levels. David accumulates many wives and concubines (1 Sam. 18:27; 25:42f; 2 Sam. 3:2-5; 5:13; 11-12). David also receives Saul’s wives. Second Samuel 12:7-8 explains, “Nathan said to David, ‘You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. 8 And I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more.’” Nathan goes on to prophesy that these wives would be the source of David’s humiliation (2 Sam. 12:11f). Indeed, David’s polygamous household is an unhappy disaster followed by Amnon’s rape of Tamar (2 Sam. 13:1-22), Absalom’s murder of Amnon (2 Sam. 13:23-33), Absalom’s rebellion (2 Sam. 15:1-18:33), and the violation of the ten concubines on the rooftop (1 Sam. 16:21f).
The apex of royal polygamy is Solomon, taking 700 wives and 300 concubines. His wives turn his heart to other gods (1 Kings 11:1-8), just like Deuteronomy 17:17 predicted. This is the part of the story where polygamy is directly linked to apostasy and the destruction of Israel. Here is a man who seemed to have it all: A Temple that was the wonder of the ancient world, the inherited promises of David, and legendary wisdom. But his sublime life is brought to ruin by multiplying wives.
Solomon, like Adam, failed in his marriage duties. Adam failed in the garden when he listened to his wife rather than God. Solomon failed in the palace when he listened to his many wives rather than God. And not just many wives. 700 plus 300. 1000 represents totality and completeness. God’s promises were to a thousand generations (Dt. 7:9), his blessings were the cattle on a thousand hills (Ps. 50:10), and divine time means one thousand years are but as a day (Ps. 90:4). God’s total covenant fulfillment comes by the thousands. Solomon’s complete covenant corruption, likewise, came by the thousands.
But the pattern continues. Rehoboam had eighteen wives and sixty concubines (2 Chron. 11:18-23), Abijah took fourteen wives (2 Chron. 13:21), and Jehoram had multiple wives (2 Chron. 21:14, 17). Jehoida the priest, the guy who should know better, arranged Joash’s polygamy (2 Chron. 24:3). Caleb (1 Chron. 2:18f, 46ff), Shaharaim (1 Chron. 8:8-11), and Jerahmeel (1 Chron. 2:26) also had multiple wives.
The polygamy of Saul, then David, then Solomon, then all the rest of the kings, was in direct violation of God’s law forbidding kings from marrying multiple wives (Dt. 17:17). This is the story of the fracture of the kingdom. When the United Monarchy was shattered like a windshield, polygamy was the little rock that turned a little indention into a series of cracks.
The wisdom and prophetic books imply that monogamy is normative. Proverbs 5 and 31 don’t explicitly mention polygamy, but set forth the vision for the ideal wife and the faithful husband. The Song of Solomon, in an irony worthy only of Solomon, elevates the singular bride above the attractions of sixty queens and eighty concubines (Song of Solomon 6:8-9). That is the Solomon way, to say things that incriminate your own life, but advocate God’s wisdom. Ezekiel 23 is an allegory in which two sisters, Oholah and Oholibah, are portrayed as the two wives of God, Samaria and Jerusalem. Ezekiel uses polygamy not as a model, but to illustrate the unfaithfulness of God’s people, in that both wives are unfaithful. Even in metaphor, polygamy leads to condemnation.
How will Israel heal from their disobedient history of polygamy? Malachi 2:14-15 calls for fidelity in marriage, emphasizing the oneness of marriage, “The Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.” The prophet is calling Israel back to the creational norm. In all the Old Testament examples, polygamy never works out to a happy conclusion.
New Testament Survey of Polygamy
The New Testament provides sweeping clarification on God’s expectations for monogamous marriage. This starts in Matthew 19:3-12, when the Pharisees ask Jesus about divorce. Jesus answers, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Mt. 19:4-6). Jesus is saying that the foundational understanding of marriage predates the Mosaic law. Two become one. It’s not that three or four become one. For two to become one means that no third party can enter the marriage. This is God’s design “from the beginning.” Jesus’ hermeneutics clarifies that the creation order for marriage supersedes any accommodation that might be derived from the Old Testament.
Elsewhere, Jesus further clarifies that God’s intention for marriage is one man and one woman for one lifetime. To marry another is to commit adultery (Lk. 16:18). The marriage covenant requires exclusive devotion, so much so that if a husband even looks at another woman with lustful intent, he has committed adultery in his heart (Mt. 5:27-32).
The Apostle Paul teaches that “Each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband” (1 Cor. 7:2). “Wife,” not wives. “His own wife,” not a wife among others. The husband “gives his wife her conjugal rights” (1 Cor. 7:3). The husband doesn’t have authority over his own body any more than the wife does (1 Cor. 7:4). This mutual conjugal duty is incompatible with polygamy. The binding between the husband and wife is singular and exclusive until death (1 Cor. 7:39). All of Paul’s teachings on marriage are an extension of Jesus’ teaching on the subject (1 Cor. 7:10f).
In Romans 7:1-3, Paul uses marriage to illustrate the gospel principle of freedom from the law. At the center of this illustration are two remarriage scenarios, both found in Romans 7:3. The first scenario is that if a married woman goes on to live with another man while her first husband still lives, she is called an adulteress. The second scenario is that if a married woman’s husband dies and she marries another man, she is not called an adulteress. How is it that one remarriage would make her an adulteress while the other would not? What has made the difference? In the first scenario, the married woman goes on to live with another man while her first husband is still living. In this scenario, she is called an adulteress. Why? Because she is still bound by law to her husband. In the second scenario, the married woman’s husband dies, and she marries another man. In this scenario, she is not called an adulteress. Why? Because she is released from the law of marriage that bound her to her husband, who is now dead. Paul’s teaching only makes sense if marriage is exclusively singular.
In Ephesians 5:22-33, we learn the penultimate reason God designed marriage as a monogamous institution. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her... ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:25, 31-32). Notice two things. First, like Christ, Paul roots marriage in Genesis 2:24, where two become one. Second, the mystery of the one-flesh union refers to Christ and the church. So, why did God make monogamous marriage an essential civilizational institution? It is a parable pointing to the exclusive, self-giving, singular love of Christ for his Bride. Indeed, the new creation is structured as a marriage (Rev. 21:2,9). For the bride’s part, she must not have relationships with the other gods (2 Cor. 11:2). For Christ’s part, he does not have multiple brides. There is one Lamb and one Bride (Rev. 19:6-9; 21:2, 9). The sign of marriage must correspond to the reality it signifies.
In Galatians 4:21-31, Paul uses Abraham’s two wives, Hagar and Sarah, as an allegory of two covenants. Hagar, the slave wife, represents flesh (Gal. 4:23), Mount Sinai (Gal. 4:25), and slavery (Gal 4:25). Sarah, the free wife, represents “the Jerusalem above” (Gal. 4:26), promise (Gal. 4:23, 28), and freedom (Gal. 4:26, 30f). Paul is not endorsing polygamy. He is using it typologically, deriving theological lessons to persuade God’s people to leave behind the slave wife.
In 1 Timothy, Paul requires an elder to be “the husband of one wife” (1 Tim. 3:2). He must be a one-woman man, not a polygamist, among other things. Deacons must likewise “be the husband of one wife” (1 Tim. 3:12). The pattern for leaders in the church is that they practice monogamy (Titus 1:6). This reflects the creational norm. The people of the church are expected to follow the example of their leaders. In 1 Timothy 5:9, it’s not just elders and deacons that should practice monogamy, but also widows. Only if she were a one-man woman could she enroll in the church’s care.
In sum, the New Testament is consistent. Monogamy is God’s norm for marriage. Polygamy is never treated neutrally, it is never endorsed, and it is never accommodated. When the Westminster Confession of Faith (24.1) states that marriage is to be “between one man and one woman,” it reflects the Bible’s rejection of polygamy and the church’s conviction on the subject for two thousand years.
Spiritual Polygamy
The Bible’s distinction between marital and spiritual polygamy reveals that they are quite the same, even when they are assumed to be different. When Solomon accumulated wives, he accumulated gods. The body trains the soul, and in Solomon’s case, his marital polygamy trained his soul for spiritual polygamy. But it’s not that the two phenomena are analogous. It’s that marital polygamy is a mechanism that generates spiritual polygamy (1 Kings 11:1-8). This is seen, first, not with Solomon, but with Jacob, whose polygamous household included foreign gods (Gen. 31:19) that needed to be purified (Gen. 35:2-4). Surely it’s no coincidence that the word that is used for sexual unfaithfulness in Genesis 38:24 is also the word used for spiritual idolatry in Exodus 34:15-16.
This would then mean that marital monogamy as the norm of society is supposed to train people to spiritual monogamy to the One True God. God’s marriage to Israel is that of exclusive devotion (Ex. 34:14-16). The warning against idolatry is that Israel must not “whore after their gods.” So, it’s not just that God is jealous, it’s that God, as Israel’s husband (Jer. 3:14), has spousal jealousy for Israel.
God commands Hosea to marry a promiscuous woman, Gomer. Why? To provide a living lesson of Israel’s spiritual condition (Hos. 1:2; 2:5, 13). It’s not just Solomon now who is compromised. It’s all of Israel. Israel had taken spiritual lovers when they worshipped the gods at the high places. Gomer’s serial unfaithfulness effectively multiplies her husbands, and this mirrors Israel’s actions. Jeremiah warned Israel to no longer play the whore (Jer. 3:6-10). The creational norm of one man, one woman, one flesh, for one lifetime, is not just a pattern for human marriage. It is the pattern for God’s covenant relationship with his people.
The good news is that there is hope for the unfaithful bride. Hosea 2:16, 20 says, “And in that day, declares the LORD, you will call me ‘My Husband’... I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.” Even after indicting Jerusalem’s whoredom, God says, “I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant …. That you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth against because of your shame, when I atone for all that you have done” (Ez. 16:60, 63).
Israel’s kings were unfaithful and polygamous. Israel needed the One True King. Jesus Christ is the one faithful husband Israel never had in their kings. The church is the singular bride, a new nation drawn from every nation (1 Pt. 2:9; Rev. 5:9). They used to sleep with the harlot in search of a god (1 Cor. 6:12-20). But they repented of their false gods (Ezek. 14:6; 1 Thess. 1:9) and underwent the purifying fire of Christ’s holiness (1 Pt. 1:7), reconciled to Christ by his death (Col. 1:22), made ready for the wedding feast (Rev. 19:7f).
Conclusion
Why does this matter? It’s not only that the church’s marital practices train their spiritual ones. It’s also that polygamy may be the next cultural move to outflank and destroy God’s design for marriage. Finding biblical clarity on the subject of polygamy is far more relevant than it appears on the surface.
The 2015 Obergefell decision redefined marriage. Each individual, wholly apart from all others, was declared free and equal, independent and separate, each with his own right, irrespective of the Bible, the city, the society, the common concern, or the needs of children. The right is concentrated on personal desire as both the means and the end of marriage. This new right redefines marriage in the name of adult equality and pleasure. In other words, Obergefell transformed marriage into a vehicle for adult fulfillment. If marriage is about individual sexual desire, no matter how perverted, then marriage is fundamentally about what makes individuals happy. If this is the ground of marriage, not only will they remove the complementarity of marriage, but they will also remove the monogamy requirement of marriage as superannuated thinking. The church must be theologically clear-headed to face down the oncoming challenges.
Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of the book The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and the book The Making of Evangelical Spirituality (Wipf and Stock).
Among evangelicals, there has long existed a vague unanimity that polygamy was wrong. There was a hazy notion of the varied examples of it in Scripture, but it was nothing more than a preposterous proposition. If one wife is a tantalizing riddle, what must 1000 wives be?
In Scripture, polygamy is more than an accidental misfortune of exceptional times. It’s more than solemn foolery. It’s more than mere dregs of melodramatic or connubial visions. The polygamy of one kind was a type of another kind, and in this way, it’s a bigger part of the story than one would think. It was Israel’s growing and ongoing practice of polygamy that beggared and enslaved them to the high places of the gods. But we are running ahead. We’ll demonstrate these conclusions in due course.
Before exploring what the Bible says about the subject, we must establish the standard against which everything is measured. This takes us to a time before Sinai, to a time before the Fall. Genesis 2:24 says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” The grammar is singular throughout. “A man,” not men. “His wife,” not wives. Interestingly, the Hebrew word echad, translated as one, is also part of the Shema. Just like “the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Dt. 6:4), so too is marriage where two become one. The oneness of marriage relates to the oneness of God, and as we will see, it points forward to the exclusive covenant between Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:31-32). With that baseline, we are prepared to conduct a biblical survey of polygamy.
Old Testament Survey of Polygamy
The first reference to polygamy is when Lamech, the descendant of Cain, takes two wives, Adah and Zillah. Lamech is a man of violence (Gen. 4:23) who intentionally takes after his ancestor, Cain (Gen. 4:24). So, polygamy enters the biblical story through the chronicle of a killer. There is no moral footnote that spells it out: “Lamech’s polygamy was wrong.” That would be too obvious. The embedded actions of a wicked loggerhead in a narrative context point to a leitmotif that polygamy is always a miasmic event.
The narrative of the Patriarchs is more complicated. Abraham took a wife named Sarai, who then proceeded to give her Egyptian servant, Hagar, to Abraham “as a wife” (Gen. 16:3). One would hope that was the end of the flummery. But, alas, Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, was deceived into marrying the wrong woman, Leah. So he works another seven years to marry the right woman, Rachel (Gen. 29:15-30). Troubles mount in the household of multiple wives. Leah gives birth, but Jacob’s beloved, Rachel, is barren. So, Rachel gives her servant Bilhah to Jacob as a wife, and she bears Dan and Naphtali (Gen. 30:1-8) on Rachel’s behalf. Not to be one-upped, Leah gives her servant Zilpah to Jacob, and she bears Gad and Asher (Gen. 30:9-13) on Leah’s behalf.
Abraham’s other grandson, Esau, takes multiple wives, Judith and Basemath, both Hittites (Gen. 26:34), and Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael (Gen. 28:9). Esau’s other wives are mentioned in Genesis 36:1-5. They are named Adah, a Hittite, and Oholibamah, a Hivite.
Here we have Abraham and Jacob, the heroes of the faith, practicing polygamy. God blessed the Patriarchs throughout their lives. Does that mean God was blessing polygamy? Reflecting on the Patriarchal narratives, polygamy does not emerge as the happy bliss of moral purity. Abraham’s marriage of Hagar is about rivalry (Gen. 21:9), expulsion (Gen. 21:10), displeasure (Gen. 21:11), and tears (Gen. 21:16). Jacob’s marriage to two sisters, and then the sister’s servants, is marked by envy (Gen. 29:26, 30; Gen. 30:1), hatred (Ge. 29:31), rivalry (Gen. 29:34; 30:8), anger (Gen. 30:2), and manipulation (Gen. 30:14-17). And all this strife carried into the relationship of Jacob’s children. Remember that Joseph was nearly murdered by his brothers. This is a dysfunctional polygamous household. The lesson is plain: When the creational norm is violated, sin is multiplied.
Then comes the Mosaic Law. Deuteronomy 17:17 restricts kings from having multiple wives. Deuteronomy 21:15-17 regulates a situation where a man finds himself married to two women, one he loves and one he doesn’t love. If the unloved wife bears his firstborn son, he may not deprive the firstborn son of his inheritance. This law assumes polygamy has been occurring and sets out to govern it, without explicitly endorsing it. In Deuteronomy 25:5-10, a man must marry his dead brother’s wife if they all dwelled together. The regulation is silent on whether this applies even if the brother was already married. Leviticus 18:18 says, “And you shall not take a woman as a rival wife to her sister, uncovering her nakedness while her sister is still alive.” Notice the problem with polygamy. It invites rivalry into the household, something that is true whether the wives are sisters or not, as 1 Samuel 1:1-8 illustrates. In other words, a bad wife is better than a good haraam.
It wouldn’t be right to conclude that the Mosaic law approves of polygamy. God’s law regulates it, which is different from supporting it. Just like God regulates divorce without approving of it (Dt. 24; Mt. 19:8), God establishes guardrails to protect the vulnerable within the pestiferous situation of polygamy. Providing merciful protections within the muddle is hardly a blueprint for a faultless design. It’s revealing that the king is forbidden from marrying multiple wives (Dt. 17:17). He is supposed to be the leader, the model that the people follow.
The historical books provide several more examples of polygamy. In Judges 8:29-32, Gideon has two names and many wives. When he is called Jerubbaal, the son of Joash, in Judges 8:29, he lives in his own house rather than a palace. He is resisting Baal by resisting the tendency to become a totalitarian king. But when he is called Gideon in Judges 8:30, he has 70 sons. In Scripture, the number 70 points to the nations of the world (Genesis 10; Judges 1:7), and Gideon’s 70 sons come from his many wives.
In Judges 10 – 12, polygamy is implied by the description of fecundity attributed to Jair the Gileadite (Judges 10:3f); Ibzan of Bethlehem (Judges 12:8f), and Abdon (Judges 12:13f). These leaders of Israel operated above the law, ignoring God’s disapproval of polygamy. It’s after the failure of the Judges that God’s people wish for a king. But their first monarch, Saul, takes a concubine (2 Sam. 3:7) and foreshadows the royal polygamy that plagues Israel’s future.
The royal history of Israel is where polygamy reaches catastrophic levels. David accumulates many wives and concubines (1 Sam. 18:27; 25:42f; 2 Sam. 3:2-5; 5:13; 11-12). David also receives Saul’s wives. Second Samuel 12:7-8 explains, “Nathan said to David, ‘You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. 8 And I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more.’” Nathan goes on to prophesy that these wives would be the source of David’s humiliation (2 Sam. 12:11f). Indeed, David’s polygamous household is an unhappy disaster followed by Amnon’s rape of Tamar (2 Sam. 13:1-22), Absalom’s murder of Amnon (2 Sam. 13:23-33), Absalom’s rebellion (2 Sam. 15:1-18:33), and the violation of the ten concubines on the rooftop (1 Sam. 16:21f).
The apex of royal polygamy is Solomon, taking 700 wives and 300 concubines. His wives turn his heart to other gods (1 Kings 11:1-8), just like Deuteronomy 17:17 predicted. This is the part of the story where polygamy is directly linked to apostasy and the destruction of Israel. Here is a man who seemed to have it all: A Temple that was the wonder of the ancient world, the inherited promises of David, and legendary wisdom. But his sublime life is brought to ruin by multiplying wives.
Solomon, like Adam, failed in his marriage duties. Adam failed in the garden when he listened to his wife rather than God. Solomon failed in the palace when he listened to his many wives rather than God. And not just many wives. 700 plus 300. 1000 represents totality and completeness. God’s promises were to a thousand generations (Dt. 7:9), his blessings were the cattle on a thousand hills (Ps. 50:10), and divine time means one thousand years are but as a day (Ps. 90:4). God’s total covenant fulfillment comes by the thousands. Solomon’s complete covenant corruption, likewise, came by the thousands.
But the pattern continues. Rehoboam had eighteen wives and sixty concubines (2 Chron. 11:18-23), Abijah took fourteen wives (2 Chron. 13:21), and Jehoram had multiple wives (2 Chron. 21:14, 17). Jehoida the priest, the guy who should know better, arranged Joash’s polygamy (2 Chron. 24:3). Caleb (1 Chron. 2:18f, 46ff), Shaharaim (1 Chron. 8:8-11), and Jerahmeel (1 Chron. 2:26) also had multiple wives.
The polygamy of Saul, then David, then Solomon, then all the rest of the kings, was in direct violation of God’s law forbidding kings from marrying multiple wives (Dt. 17:17). This is the story of the fracture of the kingdom. When the United Monarchy was shattered like a windshield, polygamy was the little rock that turned a little indention into a series of cracks.
The wisdom and prophetic books imply that monogamy is normative. Proverbs 5 and 31 don’t explicitly mention polygamy, but set forth the vision for the ideal wife and the faithful husband. The Song of Solomon, in an irony worthy only of Solomon, elevates the singular bride above the attractions of sixty queens and eighty concubines (Song of Solomon 6:8-9). That is the Solomon way, to say things that incriminate your own life, but advocate God’s wisdom. Ezekiel 23 is an allegory in which two sisters, Oholah and Oholibah, are portrayed as the two wives of God, Samaria and Jerusalem. Ezekiel uses polygamy not as a model, but to illustrate the unfaithfulness of God’s people, in that both wives are unfaithful. Even in metaphor, polygamy leads to condemnation.
How will Israel heal from their disobedient history of polygamy? Malachi 2:14-15 calls for fidelity in marriage, emphasizing the oneness of marriage, “The Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.” The prophet is calling Israel back to the creational norm. In all the Old Testament examples, polygamy never works out to a happy conclusion.
New Testament Survey of Polygamy
The New Testament provides sweeping clarification on God’s expectations for monogamous marriage. This starts in Matthew 19:3-12, when the Pharisees ask Jesus about divorce. Jesus answers, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Mt. 19:4-6). Jesus is saying that the foundational understanding of marriage predates the Mosaic law. Two become one. It’s not that three or four become one. For two to become one means that no third party can enter the marriage. This is God’s design “from the beginning.” Jesus’ hermeneutics clarifies that the creation order for marriage supersedes any accommodation that might be derived from the Old Testament.
Elsewhere, Jesus further clarifies that God’s intention for marriage is one man and one woman for one lifetime. To marry another is to commit adultery (Lk. 16:18). The marriage covenant requires exclusive devotion, so much so that if a husband even looks at another woman with lustful intent, he has committed adultery in his heart (Mt. 5:27-32).
The Apostle Paul teaches that “Each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband” (1 Cor. 7:2). “Wife,” not wives. “His own wife,” not a wife among others. The husband “gives his wife her conjugal rights” (1 Cor. 7:3). The husband doesn’t have authority over his own body any more than the wife does (1 Cor. 7:4). This mutual conjugal duty is incompatible with polygamy. The binding between the husband and wife is singular and exclusive until death (1 Cor. 7:39). All of Paul’s teachings on marriage are an extension of Jesus’ teaching on the subject (1 Cor. 7:10f).
In Romans 7:1-3, Paul uses marriage to illustrate the gospel principle of freedom from the law. At the center of this illustration are two remarriage scenarios, both found in Romans 7:3. The first scenario is that if a married woman goes on to live with another man while her first husband still lives, she is called an adulteress. The second scenario is that if a married woman’s husband dies and she marries another man, she is not called an adulteress. How is it that one remarriage would make her an adulteress while the other would not? What has made the difference? In the first scenario, the married woman goes on to live with another man while her first husband is still living. In this scenario, she is called an adulteress. Why? Because she is still bound by law to her husband. In the second scenario, the married woman’s husband dies, and she marries another man. In this scenario, she is not called an adulteress. Why? Because she is released from the law of marriage that bound her to her husband, who is now dead. Paul’s teaching only makes sense if marriage is exclusively singular.
In Ephesians 5:22-33, we learn the penultimate reason God designed marriage as a monogamous institution. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her... ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:25, 31-32). Notice two things. First, like Christ, Paul roots marriage in Genesis 2:24, where two become one. Second, the mystery of the one-flesh union refers to Christ and the church. So, why did God make monogamous marriage an essential civilizational institution? It is a parable pointing to the exclusive, self-giving, singular love of Christ for his Bride. Indeed, the new creation is structured as a marriage (Rev. 21:2,9). For the bride’s part, she must not have relationships with the other gods (2 Cor. 11:2). For Christ’s part, he does not have multiple brides. There is one Lamb and one Bride (Rev. 19:6-9; 21:2, 9). The sign of marriage must correspond to the reality it signifies.
In Galatians 4:21-31, Paul uses Abraham’s two wives, Hagar and Sarah, as an allegory of two covenants. Hagar, the slave wife, represents flesh (Gal. 4:23), Mount Sinai (Gal. 4:25), and slavery (Gal 4:25). Sarah, the free wife, represents “the Jerusalem above” (Gal. 4:26), promise (Gal. 4:23, 28), and freedom (Gal. 4:26, 30f). Paul is not endorsing polygamy. He is using it typologically, deriving theological lessons to persuade God’s people to leave behind the slave wife.
In 1 Timothy, Paul requires an elder to be “the husband of one wife” (1 Tim. 3:2). He must be a one-woman man, not a polygamist, among other things. Deacons must likewise “be the husband of one wife” (1 Tim. 3:12). The pattern for leaders in the church is that they practice monogamy (Titus 1:6). This reflects the creational norm. The people of the church are expected to follow the example of their leaders. In 1 Timothy 5:9, it’s not just elders and deacons that should practice monogamy, but also widows. Only if she were a one-man woman could she enroll in the church’s care.
In sum, the New Testament is consistent. Monogamy is God’s norm for marriage. Polygamy is never treated neutrally, it is never endorsed, and it is never accommodated. When the Westminster Confession of Faith (24.1) states that marriage is to be “between one man and one woman,” it reflects the Bible’s rejection of polygamy and the church’s conviction on the subject for two thousand years.
Spiritual Polygamy
The Bible’s distinction between marital and spiritual polygamy reveals that they are quite the same, even when they are assumed to be different. When Solomon accumulated wives, he accumulated gods. The body trains the soul, and in Solomon’s case, his marital polygamy trained his soul for spiritual polygamy. But it’s not that the two phenomena are analogous. It’s that marital polygamy is a mechanism that generates spiritual polygamy (1 Kings 11:1-8). This is seen, first, not with Solomon, but with Jacob, whose polygamous household included foreign gods (Gen. 31:19) that needed to be purified (Gen. 35:2-4). Surely it’s no coincidence that the word that is used for sexual unfaithfulness in Genesis 38:24 is also the word used for spiritual idolatry in Exodus 34:15-16.
This would then mean that marital monogamy as the norm of society is supposed to train people to spiritual monogamy to the One True God. God’s marriage to Israel is that of exclusive devotion (Ex. 34:14-16). The warning against idolatry is that Israel must not “whore after their gods.” So, it’s not just that God is jealous, it’s that God, as Israel’s husband (Jer. 3:14), has spousal jealousy for Israel.
God commands Hosea to marry a promiscuous woman, Gomer. Why? To provide a living lesson of Israel’s spiritual condition (Hos. 1:2; 2:5, 13). It’s not just Solomon now who is compromised. It’s all of Israel. Israel had taken spiritual lovers when they worshipped the gods at the high places. Gomer’s serial unfaithfulness effectively multiplies her husbands, and this mirrors Israel’s actions. Jeremiah warned Israel to no longer play the whore (Jer. 3:6-10). The creational norm of one man, one woman, one flesh, for one lifetime, is not just a pattern for human marriage. It is the pattern for God’s covenant relationship with his people.
The good news is that there is hope for the unfaithful bride. Hosea 2:16, 20 says, “And in that day, declares the LORD, you will call me ‘My Husband’... I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.” Even after indicting Jerusalem’s whoredom, God says, “I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant …. That you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth against because of your shame, when I atone for all that you have done” (Ez. 16:60, 63).
Israel’s kings were unfaithful and polygamous. Israel needed the One True King. Jesus Christ is the one faithful husband Israel never had in their kings. The church is the singular bride, a new nation drawn from every nation (1 Pt. 2:9; Rev. 5:9). They used to sleep with the harlot in search of a god (1 Cor. 6:12-20). But they repented of their false gods (Ezek. 14:6; 1 Thess. 1:9) and underwent the purifying fire of Christ’s holiness (1 Pt. 1:7), reconciled to Christ by his death (Col. 1:22), made ready for the wedding feast (Rev. 19:7f).
Conclusion
Why does this matter? It’s not only that the church’s marital practices train their spiritual ones. It’s also that polygamy may be the next cultural move to outflank and destroy God’s design for marriage. Finding biblical clarity on the subject of polygamy is far more relevant than it appears on the surface.
The 2015 Obergefell decision redefined marriage. Each individual, wholly apart from all others, was declared free and equal, independent and separate, each with his own right, irrespective of the Bible, the city, the society, the common concern, or the needs of children. The right is concentrated on personal desire as both the means and the end of marriage. This new right redefines marriage in the name of adult equality and pleasure. In other words, Obergefell transformed marriage into a vehicle for adult fulfillment. If marriage is about individual sexual desire, no matter how perverted, then marriage is fundamentally about what makes individuals happy. If this is the ground of marriage, not only will they remove the complementarity of marriage, but they will also remove the monogamy requirement of marriage as superannuated thinking. The church must be theologically clear-headed to face down the oncoming challenges.
Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of the book The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and the book The Making of Evangelical Spirituality (Wipf and Stock).
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