Biblical OT is full of accounts of multiple wives and concubines like it is ok and not considered adultery. No turning to stone, banishment, or even tested with bitter waters, no stoning or even an accusation laid upon them.
Is adultery just a classification charged to womern?
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No sister adultery is not limited to only women as the Law of Moses states that both the man and woman guilty of adultery must be brought to be judged and stoned to death. If a man has sex or gives himself non sexually to a woman then he is guilty of adultery. After all Jesus also told the men that if they lusted after a woman in their hearts they'd be guilty of adultery.
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Hello @visionary, this particular passage involves "adultery of the heart" and its possible consequences, but adultery it is nevertheless. The Lord stated it with men in view, though I'm sure that women can be just as guilty of committing it.
--David
p.s. - also, along with the Decalogue's, "Thou shalt not commit adultery" (in Exodus and Deuteronomy), which is clearly a commandment for both sexes, there is this too.
Matthew 5
27 You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY’;
28 but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in ~his~ heart.
29 If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
30 If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.
God bless you!27 You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY’;
28 but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in ~his~ heart.
29 If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
30 If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.
--David
p.s. - also, along with the Decalogue's, "Thou shalt not commit adultery" (in Exodus and Deuteronomy), which is clearly a commandment for both sexes, there is this too.
Leviticus 20
10 If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
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10 If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
.
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After God's Heart
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Something to keep in mind - a lot of the OT passages where you see adultery are not prescriptive, the writers are describing historical accounts
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No, because adultery is sex between a married woman and a man other than her husband, ie what happened between David & Bathsheba. The man is just as guilty as the woman. Israel was depicted as an adulterous wife whoring around worshipping other gods, like a wife sleeping with men other than her husband.
It is not a sin for a man to have multiple wives, nor is that adultery.
It is not a sin for a man to have multiple wives, nor is that adultery.
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Find me a charge against the adulterous man?.. find me a process where the man with a concubine is stoned...
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Well the Law of Moses never changed in regard to this sister. The Law of Moses states that men cannot have sex with their brother or neighbors wife: therefore this would cover adultery and fornication. Let's be clear that the Law of Moses is still in force today even if there are many who ignore it, and it was still in force in the day of Yeshua.
As I stated above while many men have been guilty of ignoring this law, it doesn't mean that it didn't have the meaning explained by Christ. King David was punished for his adultery and treacherously murdering his right hand man to cover up his evil; and Herod was struck dead for not repenting of his adulterous relationship with his brothers wife. And men today are still punished by God for this, even if we can't see that or personally wish their punishment to be more severe, and, God will punish the unrepentant with the lake of eternal fire at the Final Judgment.
Adultery is very painful to experience as I've felt the pain of it multiple times, but rest assured that if adulterous spouses continue in their ways when Christ rules for 1,000 Years everyone can rest assured that He will properly and justly enact the Law of God given to Moses to punish this and other grievous sins.
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I should also add the story of the adulterous woman in John 8 whom Jesus acquitted. The Pharisees and scribes had not brought the man along with the woman they were accusing of adultery therefore according to the letter of the law there was no legal or lawful suit that could be heard: Jesus knew this was a trick of the Pharisees to catch Him in falsehood as a way to discredit and ridicule Him if He judged incorrectly.
So, while Jesus already knew that she had truly committed adultery it wouldn't be lawful or just to accuse her simply because He knew in advance. This shows that God will not simply use His power of simply knowing all to judge people but, will have just laws and courts setup that will bring forth evidence and witnesses to examine the truth of every matter.
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Oh and I almost forgot, God in Malachi says this to the men who used divorce to cover their wickedness:
"Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts! 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. 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. 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. “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.”
Malachi 2:10-16
Well then we see that God has sharp and heavy words for us men and sees all of the abuses committed by our hands. Since God didn't let David or Solomon get away with their spiritual and earthly adulterous He will not let the comman man or any man in between be left unpunished.
And to close this let's not forget that Adam and Eve were the first to commit spiritual adultery and God did not leave them unpunished. And since they're time we're reminded everyday of their poor decision in the garden of Eden.
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Are you proposing that it’s adultery and/or a sin for a man to have multiple wives or concubines?
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I could be mistaken, but when Messiah says “looking at a woman”, wouldn’t it be assumed that it was in regards to a married woman, since adultery is biblically defined as relations between a married woman and a man other than her husband?
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Hello Dkh587, it could be, but the word that is translated as "adultery" in Matthew 5 also carries the meaning of being carried away by thoughts of/at the solicitation of another, into adultery, fornication, idolatry, and/or things like eating things that are sacrificed to idols, etc. This word was, in fact, used as a Hebrew idiom.
Something else that the Lord Jesus said comes to mind in regard to this,
Matthew 15
18 The things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.
19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.
20 These are the things which defile a man.....
So, while you could limit what is said in Matthew 5:27-28 to a specific meaning of "adultery" (lusting after a married person, period), in the end, I don't believe that it really matters.* Do you? 18 The things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.
19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.
20 These are the things which defile a man.....
*(I believe that lusting after a single person is also sinful in God's eyes).
God bless you
--David
p.s. - I'll look into this a bit more and report back if I find something additional/interesting.
Job 31
1 I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?
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1 I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?
.
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No, because if that was the case then Christ would have made that clarification. Otherwise the Law of Moses is very clear that if you are married and give yourself over to another you are not married to--whether physically or not, and regardless of whether that person is married or not--you are guilty of adultery.
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To add onto what I said to you prior, the Word adultery comes from the Latin ad- "to" + alterare "alter". Therefore in its proper context adultery means I am literally beginning "to alter" my marriage vows, or violate them.
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Yes well as shocking as it may seem when we understand it...God doesn't consider a man having multiple wives adultery because...from the beginning marriage is only between a man and a woman, and the Law of Moses also states that a man cannot sleep with his neighbors wife...which also means a woman cannot have more than one husband by default of this Law.
If we look at this from a numbers standpoint imagine...
10 Men (Unmarried)
100 Women (Unmarried)
Now if we keep a 1:1 ratio then there are 90 Women who will remain unmarried and never have children (assuming no foolery is going on). Well let's say all ten get a divorce for one reason or another and the men remarry, well according to the Law of Moses the divorced women are still considered married in the eyes of God: for divorce only symbolizes the end of the "one flesh" or "unity between husband and wife", it is not the end of a marriage. Now...
10 Men (Divorced and Remarried)
10 Women (Divorced)
10 Women (Newly married)
80 Women (Unmarried)
...let's say these loose marriages keep happening...
10 Men (Divorced and Remarried 10 Times)
100 Women (Divorced and Married)
...we are on the verge of a dangerous problem now because their are no more new women for the men to marry as every 1 Man has 10 Wives. If these irreconciled marriages are allowed to continue then all hell will break loose. Of course our world plays so loosely with sex and marriage that at some point a man or woman has unknowingly (or worse...knowingly) slept with an already married person.
So it would seem that just as God placed the head above the body to govern it, He also placed the husband above his wife and children to govern them; and this logic would extend to a man having multiple wives, and concubines (a married woman whom the Law recognizes as lower than the first wife, but higher than a lover or prostitute). If a woman was allowed to have more than one husband then...well...the image would result in a seven headed beast like the one we read in Daniel and Revelation...and...well...at some point the multi-headed beast would turn on itself and the woman.
So why this setup? Well seeing that mankind is made in the Image and Likeness of God we need to first understand the Divine Family as modeled in Heaven:
Heavenly Family
Head
God (Husband/Father/Male/Man)
Body
Wisdom (Wife/Mother/Female/Woman)
Yeshua (Child/Son/Male/Man)
Holy Spirit (Servant/Male/Man)
Earthly Family
Head
Adam (Husband/Father/Male/Man)
Body
Eve (Wife/Mother/Female/Woman)
Cain (Child/Son/Brother/Male/Man)
Abel (Child/Son/Brother/Male/Man)
Sister (Child/Daughter/Sister/Female/Woman)
Sister (Child/Daughter/Sister/Female/Woman)
Seth (Child/Son/Brother/Male/Man)
As you can see in the beginning there was a 1:1 Ratio as mankind was just starting out, which meant that early mankind were the exception to the incest laws written by Moses. It is not until Lamech--the grandson of Cain--that we read of a man having more than one wife, and God clearly did not punish or curse him for that. In the case of king David well God punishes him for adultery with Batsheba and murdering her husband to cover up their affair, and God tells this to him through Nathan the prophet:
"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. 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. Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.’"
2 Samuel 12:7-12
So from God's own mouth He explicitly told David that if the women and the riches and glory He had already given Him weren't enough than He would've given him more. But because David's greed for riches and power and love for women overcomes him he sinned grievously and was justly punished for it.
In the end we may not understand all the nuances and rationale behind God's standard for the rank and file He setup for men and women, marriage and family. The important thing is that just as children are to honor their parents whom God placed over them, so too are wives to honor their husband's whom God had placed over them, and this established order goes all the way back to the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:16), and the creation of the world and mankind (see Genesis 1:1-5, 24-31 cf. Proverbs 8:1-36, John 1:1-5).
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That's just the thing...God never said one man and one woman...only that marriage was between a man and a woman. In the Law of Moses we read in the seventeenth chapter of Deuteronomy the rules for a king:
“When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. 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. “And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel."
Deuteronomy 17:14-20
It seems we've run into a contradiction as it seems God is saying a king cannot attain wealth or more than one wife, yet allows the kings He has chosen to do just that...the context is on the emphasis to not go back to Egypt nor to love money and women: for that would result in their former slavery and oppression. God was emphasizing that the king must be self controlled and of a sober mind so that he might judge correctly at all times, and he was to educate himself in the Law of God so as to remain humble all of his days.
Did all men have more than one wife? No, and there were many men who were content to have just one wife, others never married, or if they did and became widowers never remarried.
Really the original intention of God for us men and women to be His earthly representatives. And we were originally given a light nature as a sign of His glory and Light that were to spread across the earth by marrying and raising godly offspring as that is God's just due and expectation of us who are naturally inclined towards family and bearing children.
Anyways as this isn't a thread about Marriage and the Family I will stop my expositions here. Just thought that should be highlighted so that we might be reminded of the original intent of God for us.
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GedaliahMaegil
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Biblically, whenever there was a matter of taking on more than one wife, calamity always followed ... 100% of the time. It may have been permitted, but it was not the ideal. Messiah Yeshua agreed with His own Torah, when He said:
"... no longer two, but one flesh ..." is critical here. This was the ideal, two becoming one (i.e. echad; cf. B'resheet 2). #AnswersInTorah
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