King Solomon's 1000+ wives and concubines, etc

JohnClay · Apr 18, 2025

I was wondering if God had any problem with King Solomon having 700 wives of royal birth and 300 concubines... (1 Kings 11:3)

Verse 4 says

As Solomon grew older, his wives turned his heart toward other gods. He didn’t follow the Lord his God with all his heart. So he wasn’t like his father David.

I think in the Old Testament the only passage somewhat against polygamy is:

Deuteronomy 17:16-17
The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.” He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.

So King Solomon disobeyed that and his heart was led astray. I'm not sure if God punished Solomon for that though.

In the New Testament the Romans outlawed polygamy and I think that's the reason why our culture also did that. Though apparently Herod the Great had multiple wives "permitted under Jewish custom".

Note characters in the Old Testament with multiple wives include:
Abraham
David
Esau
Ezra
Gideon
Jacob
Moses
Saul

I was also wondering if all 700 really were of "royal birth".

trophy33 · Apr 18, 2025

The book of Deuteronomy was written around the late 7th century BCE.

The books of Samuel are older, maybe around the 8th-9th century and the king Solomon is supposed to live around 970-930 BCE.

Meaning, the king Solomon lived about 200 years before the book of Deuteronomy.

JohnClay · Apr 18, 2025

trophy33 said:
The book of Deuteronomy was written around the late 7th century BCE.

The books of Samuel are older, maybe around the 8th-9th century and are about events from around 1100 BCE.

Do you mean Deuteronomy 17 doesn't apply to King Solomon? The consequences it mentioned (his heart will be led astray) did happen to King Solomon. It also says "He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold" but 1 Kings 10:14 says "Each year Solomon received 25 tons of gold" (666 talents). 25 tons of gold is worth $2.3 billion. I thought it was odd the figure 666 was used...

Are you saying Deuteronomy was written down after King Solomon lived? Its events seem to be before King Solomon lived though.

I thought the use of BCE was unusual - I thought just non-Christians would prefer that.

trophy33 · Apr 18, 2025

JohnClay said:
Do you mean Deuteronomy 17 doesn't apply to King Solomon? The consequences it mentioned (his heart will be led astray) did happen to King Solomon. It also says "He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold" but 1 Kings 10:14 says "Each year Solomon received 25 tons of gold" (666 talents). 25 tons of gold is worth $2.3 billion. I thought it was odd the figure 666 was used...

It did not apply as a commandment to him, because he lived before that. It applied to him regarding the risks and issues, as it applies to everybody, basically. A lot of women and a lot of riches is dangerous for one's ethics, generally.

JohnClay · Apr 18, 2025

trophy33 said:
It did not apply as a commandment to him, because he lived before that. It applied to him regarding the risks and issues, as it applies to everybody, basically. A lot of women and a lot of riches is dangerous for one's ethics, generally.

If that Bible passage doesn't apply it seems that God has no problem with King Solomon's polygamy then?

trophy33 · Apr 18, 2025

JohnClay said:
If that Bible passage doesn't apply it seems that God has no problem with King Solomon's polygamy then?

I said it applies to everybody, basically. It was not a commandment, though.

Bible describes basically all polygamy in the Bible as causing troubles. From Abraham to kings.

Reluctant Theologian · Apr 18, 2025

JohnClay said:
I was wondering if God had any problem with King Solomon having 700 wives of royal birth and 300 concubines... (1 Kings 11:3)

Verse 4 says

I think in the Old Testament the only passage somewhat against polygamy is:

So King Solomon disobeyed that and his heart was led astray. I'm not sure if God punished Solomon for that though.

In the New Testament the Romans outlawed polygamy and I think that's the reason why our culture also did that. Though apparently Herod the Great had multiple wives "permitted under Jewish custom".

Note characters in the Old Testament with multiple wives include:
Abraham
David
Esau
Ezra
Gideon
Jacob
Moses
Saul

I was also wondering if all 700 really were of "royal birth".

The Rabbinical golden standard for the maximum nr of wives for an Israelite King was 18 (from the top of my head) because that was the nr of wives/concubines of David.

Redaction of most TNK/OT books happened during the Babylonian exile period, but that still could very well mean the instructions in Deuteronomy existed well before King Solomon's reign. His practice certainly violated the instructions in Deuteronomy 17. But that chapter does not ban polygyny .. it's warning against accumulating many (even the later Rabbis knew that when developing the aforementioned rule). The entire TNK/OT does not contain any prohibition of polygyny - otherwise this could not have been a permissible practise even in Yeshua's time and even for European Jewry until the year +/- 1000 AD.

If the girl from Song of Songs is one of King Solomon's wives/concubines (the text does mention 140 others) .. she was not of royal blood.

Reluctant Theologian · Apr 18, 2025

JohnClay said:
If that Bible passage doesn't apply it seems that God has no problem with King Solomon's polygamy then?

God didn't have any problems with Davids' polygyny so why would it be a problem all of a sudden for Solomon?

JohnClay · Apr 18, 2025

trophy33 said:
I said it applies to everybody, basically. It was not a commandment, though.

It seems Deuteronomy 17:14-20 only applies to kings.

trophy33 said:
Bible describes basically all polygamy in the Bible as causing troubles. From Abraham to kings.

Polygamy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"Polygyny is not forbidden in the Hebrew Bible, and over 40 important figures had more than one wife, such as Jacob, Solomon, and possibly Moses."
The case of Solomon was very extreme though and I'm not sure he had hundreds of times more troubles than those with fewer wives and concubines.

JohnClay · Apr 18, 2025

Reluctant Theologian said:
God didn't have any problems with Davids' polygyny so why would it be a problem all of a sudden for Solomon?

Well I assumed Christian morality is one man for one woman but maybe that's not the case when you look at Solomon.

trophy33 · Apr 18, 2025

JohnClay said:
"Polygyny is not forbidden in the Hebrew Bible, and over 40 important figures had more than one wife, such as Jacob, Solomon, and possibly Moses."
The case of Solomon was very extreme though and I'm not sure he had hundreds of times more troubles than those with fewer wives and concubines.

Yes, it is not forbidden in the Bible, at least in the Old Testament. But the examples of the biblical polygyny are not giving a good image about it.

In the New Testament, we have no mention of polygyny at all. The culture was already monogamist. The questions were more about whether marriage is for the whole life etc.

Reluctant Theologian · Apr 18, 2025

JohnClay said:
Well I assumed Christian morality is one man for one woman but maybe that's not the case when you look at Solomon.

What the Christian Church used as moral norms throughout history may not necessarily be the same as what God has declared sin or not. Adam was given one Eve, so that's the golden standard it seems. But God didn't declare a man being married more than once to be a sin. No such rule can be found in either TNK/OT or NT. Even more so, four of the Heroes of the Faith in Hebrews (NT) engaged in polygyny and were never condemned for that - so even the author of Hebrews in the 1st century AD didn't consider those men to be adulterous.

A situation differing from the ideal is not necessarily a sin - otherwise choosing to remain single would be sinful as well. We have to be very, very careful adding man-made prohibitions to God's Law.

Yet it's obvious that the relationship between husband/wife mentally/socially would have very different dynamics when more than one wife is present. I am not recommending that, yet there may be circumstances in life or society where one man having two wives may represent less evil/suffering than one woman remaining unmarried.

2PhiloVoid · Apr 18, 2025

JohnClay said:
I was wondering if God had any problem with King Solomon having 700 wives of royal birth and 300 concubines... (1 Kings 11:3)

Verse 4 says

I think in the Old Testament the only passage somewhat against polygamy is:

So King Solomon disobeyed that and his heart was led astray. I'm not sure if God punished Solomon for that though.

In the New Testament the Romans outlawed polygamy and I think that's the reason why our culture also did that. Though apparently Herod the Great had multiple wives "permitted under Jewish custom".

Note characters in the Old Testament with multiple wives include:
Abraham
David
Esau
Ezra
Gideon
Jacob
Moses
Saul

I was also wondering if all 700 really were of "royal birth".

Yes, God had a problem with what Solomon did in his kingship, and Solomon's fall involved more than taking an ongoing load of foreign wives for his sexual pleasures. Taking 1000 pagan women to bed was bad enough, but Solomon also amassed weapons of war from other countries (i.e. horses), and amassed wealth "beyond compare" (i.e. 666 talents of gold each year).

So, no, God wasn't happy with Solomon, and he and his family lost some of God's long-term blessing because Solomon lived a spiritually profligate life, breaking what he already knew was God's Law. ....... Because Solomon was "so wise."

Some Christian theologians think Solomon failed to find faith. Other theologians, though, think that the book of Ecclesiastes represents Solomon's repentant awaking toward the end of his life. I hope it's the latter................

What's more, the Exilic Writers who may have 'rewritten' and ' revised' the earlier records of Israel's history ......... also blamed King Solomon for setting Israel on the path which led them to Exile in Babylon. This should be a sobering message for us today, but so often it isn't. (Or, it just goes completely unheard of.)

2PhiloVoid · Apr 18, 2025

trophy33 said:
It did not apply as a commandment to him, because he lived before that. It applied to him regarding the risks and issues, as it applies to everybody, basically. A lot of women and a lot of riches is dangerous for one's ethics, generally.

We don't really know that this is the full development of the historiographical nature of the Old Testament. It's best to not assume too much either way. Solomon could very well have "had the Law" written in another, prior, maybe shorter version.

Finding the artifacts that we know exist for Israel's history doesn't mean that the artifacts themselves represents all that ever existed in the past of the nation of Israel (and/or Judah). No, I think Solomon knew better than to do what he did, even if his access to God's Law wasn't written in the revised form we have today.

Gregory Thompson · Apr 18, 2025

There are various examples where the law laid down was speaking to how the patriarchs acted. (such as give the firstborn son his inheritance even if you like the second son's mom better) This is an example of God speaking to the practices of the kings around them. The problem with what Solomon did, is that it opened the nation up to invasion later on, and the wealthy artifacts created during the era of Solomon became coveted things by their babylonian overlords.

Solomon's prominence ended with his reign, and all the attention he gathered (especially from the Royal Concubines) from it lead to Israel's captivity later on.

trophy33 · Apr 18, 2025

2PhiloVoid said:
Solomon could very well have "had the Law" written in another, prior, maybe shorter version.

But not the book of Deuteronomy. We have no idea what "shorter version" he could have. Therefore, it is the safest to not expect any specific sentence from the book of Deuteronomy to be known to him.

2PhiloVoid · Apr 18, 2025

trophy33 said:
But not the book of Deuteronomy. We have no idea what "shorter version" he could have. Therefore, it is the safest to not expect any specific sentence from the book of Deuteronomy to be known to him.

I disagree, based on what I've already said above.

Richard T · Apr 18, 2025

Martin Luther and some of the Christian reformers did not see polygamy as a sin. To me that seems pretty shocking but here is part of their justification. Martin Luther – Speaking of Polygamy…

Reluctant Theologian · Apr 18, 2025

Richard T said:
Martin Luther and some of the Christian reformers did not see polygamy as a sin. To me that seems pretty shocking but here is part of their justification. Martin Luther – Speaking of Polygamy…

It's not really shocking because the Reformers had to re-orient their views and theology away from the Roman Catholic church and tried to base those purely on Biblical analysis again (to the best of their abilities given their time and knowledge). And when one tries to do that their conclusion on this topic is pretty much inevitable as it would be similar to Mosaic Law.

Veni · Jul 15, 2025

Reluctant Theologian said:
What the Christian Church used as moral norms throughout history may not necessarily be the same as what God has declared sin or not. Adam was given one Eve, so that's the golden standard it seems. But God didn't declare a man being married more than once to be a sin. No such rule can be found in either TNK/OT or NT. Even more so, four of the Heroes of the Faith in Hebrews (NT) engaged in polygyny and were never condemned for that - so even the author of Hebrews in the 1st century AD didn't consider those men to be adulterous.

A situation differing from the ideal is not necessarily a sin - otherwise choosing to remain single would be sinful as well. We have to be very, very careful adding man-made prohibitions to God's Law.

Yet it's obvious that the relationship between husband/wife mentally/socially would have very different dynamics when more than one wife is present. I am not recommending that, yet there may be circumstances in life or society where one man having two wives may represent less evil/suffering than one woman remaining unmarried.

the church have the power to declare something forbidden or permitted.

Matthew 18:18
Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Matthew 16:19
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

King Solomon's 1000+ wives and concubines, etc

Married Mouth-Breather

Well-Known Member

Married Mouth-Breather

Well-Known Member

Married Mouth-Breather

Well-Known Member

אַבְרָהָם

אַבְרָהָם

Married Mouth-Breather

Married Mouth-Breather

Well-Known Member

אַבְרָהָם

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Change is inevitable, feel free to spare some.

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

אַבְרָהָם

Active Member

Similar threads