If it is a sin, then why did God command it?
Did God command polygamy?
Gen 2:24 Therefore
a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to
his wife, and they shall become
one flesh. (ESV)
Mal 2:13 And this second thing you do. You cover the LORD's altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand.
Mal 2:14 But you say, “Why does he not?” Because 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.
Mal 2:15 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.
Mal 2:16 “
For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.” (ESV)
Mat 19:4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female,
Mat 19:5 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’?
Mat 19:6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (ESV)
All singular.
Mat 19:8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.
Mat 19:9 And I say to you:
whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” (ESV)
Notice that God says in Mal 2:16 that a man who divorces his wife "covers his garment with violence," but that Jesus states Moses allowed divorce "Because of your hardness of heart." More than that though,
if a man divorces his wife "and marries another, commits adultery," then how much more if a man does not divorce his wife and marries another commits adultery.
Rom 7:2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.
Rom 7:3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. (ESV)
Again, singular, but also if a woman can't live with another man while her husband is alive, then neither can a man live with, much less marry, another woman while his wife is alive.
1Co 7:1 Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.”
1Co 7:2 But because of the temptation to sexual immorality,
each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.
1Co 7:3 The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband.
1Co 7:4 For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.
1Co 7:5 Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. (ESV)
Again, all singular, but also very clear that every married believer is to have only one spouse, consistent with Gen. 2:24.
Eph 5:22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
Eph 5:23 For
the husband is the head of
the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
Eph 5:24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
Eph 5:26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
Eph 5:27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
Eph 5:28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.
He who loves his wife loves himself.
Eph 5:29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,
Eph 5:30 because we are members of his body.
Eph 5:31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
Eph 5:32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
Eph 5:33 However, let
each one of you love his wife as himself, and
let the wife see that she respects her husband. (ESV)
Once again, singular in reference to one husband and one wife, but more than that--it is a direct parallel to Christ and the Church. Just look at the OT and God's anger with the Israelites for their spiritual adultery, going against the covenant.
Why did God give David Saul's wives as his own?
Regarding kings, Saul was in sin:
Deu 17:17 And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold. (ESV)
God probably commanded David to takes Saul's wives so that they weren't just turned out into the street and were taken care of. This is a special case and in no way supports polygamy. God allowed certain things due to the hardness of the Israelites' hearts, but not anymore:
Rom 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Rom 3:24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
Rom 3:25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because
in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
Rom 3:26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (ESV)
Polygamy in the Bible is descriptive, not prescriptive. Everything in Scripture is against polygamy and no one who claims the name of Christ should be appealing to special cases in the OT to justify polygamy. In the end, polygamy appeals to man's most base, fleshly desires rather than self-control (a fruit of the Spirit), which alone tells us that it is not of God.
Rom 8:5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
Rom 8:6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. (ESV)
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