The retreat came up in Sunday School.....

[rockfox]

Hard to call it hyperbole concidering David really did have all those wives and God never complained about that. Just the one wife who belonged to another. Adultery IS called out as sinful, gravely so, multiple wives is not.

 

[cnystrom]

Before taking him to this passage, ask him outright if it would really change his mind if you could show him where God directly told a would-be polygamist in a dream that he would be innocent taking an additional wife. Would that really change his mind? Why or why not.

After that discussion (assuming he agrees), take him through Genesis 20. Here God tells Abimelech not to commit adultery with Abraham's wife Sarah. Abimelech maintains he did it in innocence because he had been deceived*, and God agrees that he would have been acting innocently if she hadn't been married. The punchline is at the end of the chapter, where we find out Abimelech was already married.

(*Cross-referencing the thread with the discussion of vows entered under false pretenses, here's another example where sin is still imputed regardless of intent. That Abimelech was unaware of Sarah's marital status, and was not intending to take another man's wife, did not change the fact that adultery would have occured.)

That is a new one that I have not heard. I mean of course I have heard the story, but a first as a polygamy justification, but it is good. I guess I should stop being surprised when I keep hearing new Biblical justifications.

My easy go to these days is 2 Chronicles 24:2-3. Simple, direct, to the point, irrefutable.

 

[Mojo]

When a person argues a sacred cow (monogamy only) they don't need to be logical, or rational. The reason they say it's hyperbole us that the other wives were mere tokens of blessing given to David after Saul died. They argue that they were not sexual wives, just booty.

The hyperbole of much more is just a way of God saying "I have the ability to really, really bless you!"

I don't make this up. Am I the only one who's heard this?

Either way, I don't like to use single verses or narratives to argue polygyny. It's a 'body of work' thing that becomes overwhelming once a person sits down to analyze it.

 

[Shibboleth]

It also opens the door to question whether any other of His gifts are also hyperbole. Salvation, the Holy Spirit, numerous gifts of the spirit, health, blessings, on and on.

Hyperbole? Bring it on

Ugh! Hyperbole is the hardest thing to understand in the whole Bible!

My friend argued that it does not stand to reason that it was morally ok for Absalom to sleep with David’s wives, even though God is said to give them to him, so that just because Nathan says that God gave David those wives, in contrast to David taking Uriah’s wife, doesn’t mean that it’s morally ok based on that statement to have sexual relations with them.

This is interesting, because it sent me down a thought trail about how God, while not the author of sin, sometimes uses further sin to punish existing sin. Aside from the case you mention here of David's wives, I can think of God using the pagan nations, such as Babylonians, to punish idolatry (see Habakuk), the death penalty prescribed in the law for certain offenses (despite murder being a sin), a woman who "has some uncleaness in her" (whatever that might mean) being divorceable although a man was supposed to cleave to his woman, God sending a "lying spirit" to Ahab, and God's "giving up" a people that reject Him to their own unclean desires. There are probably other examples, but I think this is enough.

So if this is what's going on here, then it seems it would imply God is using David's supposed "sin" of polygamy to punish another's sin? Whose? Saul's? Seems a rather flaky argument.

 

[rockfox]

When a person argues a sacred cow (monogamy only) they don't need to be logical, or rational. The reason they say it's hyperbole us that the other wives were mere tokens of blessing given to David after Saul died. They argue that they were not sexual wives, just booty.

Thats not booty or blessing, just burden!

But then, their picture of marriage looks like all burden and no blessing as well so I shouldn't be surprised.

Good point about it being a sacred cow. If someone has monogamy as part of their personal identification, it will be very hard to dislodge, regardless of the truth of the matter.

 

[frederick]

Ugh! Hyperbole is the hardest thing to understand in the whole Bible!

Unless of course you're a legalistic monogamist, then the truth of God allowing a man to have more than one wife is beyond understanding!