Why did God allow David to have multiple wives?
My first version of this question was why did David marry Abigail when he was already married to Michal. Chapter twenty five described what led to his marriage to Abigail but did not say anything about his marriage to Michal. During my research, however, I found that David went on to have multiple wives. If God had already set the way a family and a marriage would work in Genesis, then why would he allow polygamy? The importance of writing the many wives of David in the Bible was to show how people lived then, to point out the sinful ways that should be avoided, and how people should live now.
Before I began my research, I tried answering my question myself. I thought that maybe this could be David’s way of insulting Nabal after his death. Abigail stopped David from killing Nabal during their fight after David felt insulted by Nabal. David wanted a way to insult Nabal, the only way left was to take his Nabal’s widow as his new wife. The article I read on enduringword.com, explained that taking his wife could have also given him Nabal’s property. David could have seen this as a further insult on Nabal by not only taking his wife, but taking his property, also. This article also explained that David wasn’t actually married to Michal at the time that he married Abigail. Saul, Michal’s father, took her from David so that he was left without a wife. This made his marriage with Abigail make more sense to me, until I found that he took another wife a few chapters on, and then as he took many more wives. The article went on to talk about how God did not directly say not to take more than one wife. But, Genesis did explain how a family and a marriage should work. Going against these principles made his later life more difficult because he did not have God’s blessing on his family and marriage.
This led me to the question of why God allowed David to take so many wives. I think that more than likely God only tolerated his multiple marriages. An article on theblazingcenter.com helped me to understand this and to further explain what I thought about God tolerating his sinful way of life. God did not want or allow even kings to have multiple wives, but understood that society put pressure on him to do so. A second article, gotquestions.org, I found on why God may have allowed polygamy in the Old testament explained that there may not have been enough husbands for all the women. If a woman was unmarried, many times she was unable to provide for herself and had a high chance of becoming a slave or prostitute. God could have allowed these women to enter into multiple marriages so that they would be protected. King David was able to provide and protect all of his wives, which could explain why God allowed so many marriages come into his life.
http://www.enduringword.com/commentaries/0925.htm
http://www.theblazingcenter.com/2011/01/just-because-its-in-the-bible-doesnt-mean-its-good.html
http://www.gotquestions.org/polygamy.html
Before I began my research, I tried answering my question myself. I thought that maybe this could be David’s way of insulting Nabal after his death. Abigail stopped David from killing Nabal during their fight after David felt insulted by Nabal. David wanted a way to insult Nabal, the only way left was to take his Nabal’s widow as his new wife. The article I read on enduringword.com, explained that taking his wife could have also given him Nabal’s property. David could have seen this as a further insult on Nabal by not only taking his wife, but taking his property, also. This article also explained that David wasn’t actually married to Michal at the time that he married Abigail. Saul, Michal’s father, took her from David so that he was left without a wife. This made his marriage with Abigail make more sense to me, until I found that he took another wife a few chapters on, and then as he took many more wives. The article went on to talk about how God did not directly say not to take more than one wife. But, Genesis did explain how a family and a marriage should work. Going against these principles made his later life more difficult because he did not have God’s blessing on his family and marriage.
This led me to the question of why God allowed David to take so many wives. I think that more than likely God only tolerated his multiple marriages. An article on theblazingcenter.com helped me to understand this and to further explain what I thought about God tolerating his sinful way of life. God did not want or allow even kings to have multiple wives, but understood that society put pressure on him to do so. A second article, gotquestions.org, I found on why God may have allowed polygamy in the Old testament explained that there may not have been enough husbands for all the women. If a woman was unmarried, many times she was unable to provide for herself and had a high chance of becoming a slave or prostitute. God could have allowed these women to enter into multiple marriages so that they would be protected. King David was able to provide and protect all of his wives, which could explain why God allowed so many marriages come into his life.
http://www.enduringword.com/commentaries/0925.htm
http://www.theblazingcenter.com/2011/01/just-because-its-in-the-bible-doesnt-mean-its-good.html
http://www.gotquestions.org/polygamy.html