~ A place to find answers to gnawing spiritual questions ~
Question: My question is why was it okay for King David and King Solomon to have concubines, and not for men to have concubines today?Answer:
God's original creative intention was to give one wife to Adam (Gen.2:21-24). It was not until after the fall of man that it came into someone's mind to have more than one wife. Seven generations later, Lamech took to himself an extra wife (Gen 4:16-19). This came about, not by the commandment of God, but by man's choice. It does not follow that just because the Scriptures record a fact, it means that God approved of the action taken. (Jesus, when asked about this, said, "From the beginning it was not so" He also repeated the original intention of God as stated in Genesis 2:24. See Matthew 19:3-9). Polygamy and concubinage were not God's doing, but man's doing.
By the time of Abraham, polygamy and concubinage (a concubine is a sort of second class wife) were thoroughly established as part of the culture. For the time being, God chose to give mitigating rules concerning this, to make those relationships more tolerable. He would deal with it fully at a later time in the New Testament.
We can also point out that the Scriptures faithfully point out the harmful consequences of plurality of wives. Abraham has many causes for regret concerning Ishmael, the son of a union between Abraham and the Egyptian Hagar. Jacob found much grief regarding Rachel and Leah as they gave their handmaidens to be Jacob's concubines. (Genesis 16:3-4, 16; 30:1-21).
By the time Israel had kings, it was considered some kind of status symbol among monarchs to have many wives and concubines. Still, in the majority of cases in Israel, the common people practiced monogamy.
By the time the Jews had gone through the Exile into Babylonian captivity, monogamy was the norm among the Jews, and was so when Jesus came to the earth. It seems as though they discovered by sad experience that God's way of monogamy was the best, after all. When Jesus was asked about these things, He went back to Genesis to the original creative intention by God, one man for one woman.
Christ and the apostles taught that monogamy was the right way, and that marriages were not to be put asunder, because God had joined the husband and wife together as one flesh (Matt 19:6).
