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Thoughts on Deuteronomy 17:16-17 as pertains David and Solomon

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Bartato

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One of the fallacious arguments I have heard from the monogamy only crowd is that Deut. 17 prohibits the king from having more than one wife. If the king shouldn't do it, then neither should anyone else.

Here is the text in question (ESV translation)

"Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the LORD has said
to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’ And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold."

Obviously this is not a mandate of monogamy only for the king. The fact that God prohibits the king from excessive polygyny only makes sense in the context of regular polygyny being perfectly legitimate.

God said exactly the same thing about acquiring horse that He did about wives.
...not acquire many horses for himself
...not acquire many wives for himself

Nobody makes the foolish mistake of saying that this really means:
"The king may only have one horse". It isn't a problem for the king to have some horses, but he isn't to obsess about getting a bunch of them. He is to hope in God, not the strength of horses, riches, and foreign alliances. Likewise, with wives, it was ok for the king to have some, but not an excessive number (often involving alliances).

It seems to me that Solomon clearly violated all aspects of this command, while his father David did not.

Solomon
1. His heart was turned away from the Lord, like this passage said would happen.
2. He had 1000 women and crazy amounts of horses (getting them from Egypt), and ridiculous quantities of gold and silver.
3. He also violated Debut. 7 where Israel is commanded not to intermarry with the various Canaanite groups. Also this passage talks about the people being turned away from the Lord. That happened with Solomon (1 Kings 11).

Contrast that with David.
1. David had a lot of wives, around 20 probably
2. David had a lot of horses, gold,.and silver.
3. Though David sinned terribly in the matter of Uriah and Bathsheba, David never turned away from the Lord.

The horses, wives, gold, and silver were not a problem for David. They did not become his gods. His heart belonged to Yahweh.

1 Kings 15:5 esv
"...David did what was right in the
eyes of the LORD and did not turn
aside from anything that he
commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite."

Clearly for this passage to make any sense, David did not violate Deut. 17
 
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“By the law of Moses (Deuteronomy 17:17) the kings (of Israel) are forbidden to have too great a number of wives, lest they should carry them into a violation of the law: by this the legislator tacitly permits them and all others, to have more than one wife, otherwise the command would be superfluous.” -Barbeyac
 
Feeling a bit AR-15 deficient......
 
Bartato said:
A lot of us have way more guns than we do wives, honestly even more AR15s than wives.
Click to expand...
That’s called poly-gunist. But the real question is.. what if a wife has several herself? :eek::rolleyes::D
 
Guns are like children, there is no upper limit.

And yes, wives and children should be well-gunned. Responsibly.
 
Bartato said:
One of the fallacious arguments I have heard from the monogamy only crowd is that Deut. 17 prohibits the king from having more than one wife. If the king shouldn't do it, then neither should anyone else.
Click to expand...
On Sunday a visiting preacher made reference to that very passage and said it was commanded for Israel's Kings to have only one wife. Initially I was going to let it go but it concerns me people are being led astray by this sort of error so I emailed the guy about it.

I thought I'd try a different starting point. For any who might be interested here's the main part of what I emailed him yesterday.

"I have a question in regard to your comment about Solomon having more than one wife and God commanding the kings to only have one wife. I read in 2 Chronicles 24:2-3; And Joash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all the days of Jehoiada the priest. Jehoiada got for him two wives, and he had sons and daughters.

My question is this; if it was wrong for the kings of Israel to have more than one wife, why does God say Joash did what was right all the days of Jehoiada the priest when that included having more than one wife?

Looking through the Bible, I see Jehoiada was a godly priest; he knew the Law, and he got the two wives for Joash. I can't find a command for the Kings of Israel to only have one wife.

God built the nation of Israel from Jacob's family; a family with four wives. We can see that God never confronted David for taking Abigail and Ahinoam as his wives even though he already had Michal, Saul's daughter, as a wife. Yet, God confronted David when he took Bathsheba for himself because she was already the wife of Uriah. So we know adultery is wrong both by God's commandment and by example but where does God by either commandment or example show that men like Jacob, Joash, David, etc. were doing something sinful in taking more than one wife?"
 
frederick said:
On Sunday a visiting preacher made reference to that very passage and said it was commanded for Israel's Kings to have only one wife. Initially I was going to let it go but it concerns me people are being led astray by this sort of error so I emailed the guy about it.

I thought I'd try a different starting point. For any who might be interested here's the main part of what I emailed him yesterday.

"I have a question in regard to your comment about Solomon having more than one wife and God commanding the kings to only have one wife. I read in 2 Chronicles 24:2-3; And Joash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all the days of Jehoiada the priest. Jehoiada got for him two wives, and he had sons and daughters.

My question is this; if it was wrong for the kings of Israel to have more than one wife, why does God say Joash did what was right all the days of Jehoiada the priest when that included having more than one wife?

Looking through the Bible, I see Jehoiada was a godly priest; he knew the Law, and he got the two wives for Joash. I can't find a command for the Kings of Israel to only have one wife.

God built the nation of Israel from Jacob's family; a family with four wives. We can see that God never confronted David for taking Abigail and Ahinoam as his wives even though he already had Michal, Saul's daughter, as a wife. Yet, God confronted David when he took Bathsheba for himself because she was already the wife of Uriah. So we know adultery is wrong both by God's commandment and by example but where does God by either commandment or example show that men like Jacob, Joash, David, etc. were doing something sinful in taking more than one wife?"
Click to expand...

I look forward to his response! If he already jumped the shark with that passage I think there’s a good chance he will double down on it to save his ego. I hope I’m wrong. I’m guessing he doesn’t know about your blessings?
 
I always like to ask people that bring Dt 17:17 up, " Do you think this verse is a monogamy mandate?"

Then I ask, " Did you know that modern Bibles translate it 'he shall not take many wives for himself"?

Then I explain, it's literally a not many but a "great many wives" like the promised number of abraham's descendants.

Then I paraphrase it, " I think it should be, he shall not take for himself a ridiculous number of wives."
 
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