Polygamy

The practice of polygamy has been in the news some, lately, and, even though it is a controversial subject, I thought that I would weigh in on it. It has been pointed out that it was generally accepted in the Old Testament, and never specifically forbidden in the New Testament. Let me first point out that just because something isn’t specifically forbidden, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is okay.
Let me also say that it may not have been as common as you may think, even in the Old Testament. Granted, David had multiple wives, and so did Solomon, but they were both kings, they were not commoners. Abraham had a wife, Sarah, and a concubine, Hagar. He did marry another wife, but not until after the death of Sarah(?) It’s an interesting discussion, because Keturah had six sons by Abraham, and he was already old when Sarah died, so perhaps Keturah was a concubine (in fact, 1 Chronicles 1:32 refers to her as such), that had sons while Sarah was still alive—possibly even while Abraham was still young. I have to question that, though, because if Abraham had sons when God promised to make a great nation from Abraham’s seed, then wouldn’t Abraham and Sarah have assumed that God meant from his existing sons? There would have been no point in enlisting Hagar as a concubine, if Abraham already had a concubine that had already given him children. Isaac only had one wife, Rebekah. Jacob had four wives, or two wives and two concubines, depending on who you listen to. Gideon also had multiple wives. Very rarely is there any mention of anyone else having multiple wives. (Some have said that Moses had two wives, but the Bible only names one: Zipporah. Zipporah’s father has two names, though, and is sometimes called Reuel, and sometimes called Jethro).
The question arises, though, what is the difference between a wife and a concubine? Easton’s Bible Dictionary says that a concubine was a wife of secondary rank (it says more than that, but I only have so much space, and I don’t want to get sued for plagiarism). Smith’s Bible Dictionary points out that a wife could be divorced, whereas a concubine could not. Smith’s goes on to catalog four types of concubines: A Hebrew girl bought from her father, a gentile captive taken in war, a foreign slave bought, or a Canaanitish woman. The first two had rights under the Law of Moses, the third did not, and the fourth was actually prohibited by the Law (not to suggest that it didn’t happen, though). I should point out that, although Zilpah and Bilhah are mentioned as being Jacob’s wives, they were only with Jacob because they were Leah and Rachel’s slaves, and, in fact, Bilhah is mentioned as being Jacob’s concubine in Genesis 35:22. Apparently there wasn’t considered to be much difference between a wife and a concubine at that time.
By the way, from what I understand, a supporter of Biblical polygamy once challenged Mark twain to find any place in the Bible where polygamy was forbidden. Twain responded with Matthew 6:24. Quite frankly, though, even though one of the parables that Jesus told seems to support the idea of polygamy, Jesus also made it clear that when God created marriage, he created Eve to be Adam’s wife. He did not create a harem for Adam, he created a wife. The parable was intended to convey the idea that although many people can be saved, only those that are ready when He comes will be. Keep in mind that Jesus used parables to relate spiritual things to physical things that people could understand, but not necessarily physical things that he approved of; remember the unjust judge?

Joseph and His Brothers

Most of us know the story: Joseph was the favored son of Jacob. Jacob's love, his wife Rachel, only had two sons, Joseph and Benjamin, although he had twelve sons altogether, and Benjamin was still pretty young. So, already the older brothers are jealous, because Jacob's favoritism is obvious, but then Joseph starts spouting off about dreams that he has had (the sun and moon and eleven stars bowed down to me). The dreams were actually prophesies about the family showing obeisance to Joseph because he made it possible for them to survive the upcoming famine, but, at the time, they just seemed to be boastings of a boy who thought way too much of himself.
One day, the brothers found themselves alone with Joseph, and their father was way out of sight, and some of the brothers started scheming to kill Joseph. Reuben intervened, not because he was less jealous of Joseph than the others, but because he had some idea of what it would do to their father if something happened to Joseph (the beloved son). He talked them into putting Joseph into a pit, while he tried to think of a way to rescue Joseph. In the meantime, some merchants came by, and some of the other brothers decided to sell Joseph as a slave; that way, they got rid of him, and picked up a little extra cash, too. They took his coat, smeared blood on it, and showed it to Jacob. Jacob believed that his most beloved son had been killed by a wild animal, and mourned his loss. I think that the brothers had second thoughts, then, as Ruben had expected, but it was too late. They didn't even know where their brother was.
Years later, after going through a lot of stuff, Joseph is called in to interpret a dream for Pharaoh. The dream is, of course, prophecy about the famine. Joseph tells Pharaoh that he needs to pick a man of wisdom to collect a portion of the crop yield for the next seven years, so that it can be stored and used during the seven years of famine. Pharaoh figures that Joseph was the only man wise enough to interpret the dream, so he's the perfect choice to oversee the collection and distribution of food for the next fourteen years. The famine turns out to be considerably more widespread than just Egypt, but Jacob and his sons hear that there is food in Egypt. The ten oldest sons go down to Egypt with money to buy food. Joseph gives them food, but he toys with them a little. I think part of him wants to punish them for what they did to him, but, mostly, I think he wants to know if they have developed some moral fiber in the years since he last saw them.
One thing that is very clear, as you read the story: Even after all he has been through, Joseph still loves his brothers. He isn't sure how they feel about him, but they seem to have written him off as dead. Of course, they've been pretending that he is dead with their father for years, so maybe this is just force of habit. Possibly they are afraid that word will get back to their father; perhaps Reuben doesn't know what really happened to Joseph, even now. As Joseph pushes and prods his brothers, trying to find out what kind of men they really are, now, it becomes increasingly difficult for him to keep up the pretense. He has to walk away, weep, wash his face, and come back. He sets Benjamin up, the only other son of Joseph's late mother, and waits to see what the other brothers will do. The brothers could easily have walked away; Oh well, Dad's second favorite son is gone, too. They stayed, and they pleaded for Benjamin. This time, Reuben wasn't the only one who thought about what the loss would mean to their father. Eventually, Joseph broke down and revealed himself to his brothers, and told them to go get Jacob, and return, and live in Egypt, and he will take care of them.
Interestingly enough, Joseph’s mother had already died by the time all this happened, and there is no mention of Leah dying, or migrating to Egypt. The prophecy was that Joseph’s parents and brothers should show him obeisance, so, in the absence of his mother, I am assuming that his father’s other wife was represented by the moon in Joseph’s dream. Apparently Leah did make the trip, even though it isn’t specifically mentioned.
In any case, family is important. We won’t always agree with, or even understand, some of the things that our relatives do, but they are still family. We should love and respect our families, even when we have to disagree with them. Jesus made it clear that we shouldn’t let even our closest relatives keep us from living the life of a Christian, but we should still care for them.

UPDATE: It was pointed out to me that I inadvertantly wrote Joseph twice where I should have written Jacob. That has been corrected. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused.

A Loveless Marriage

It seems to me that two of the most common excuses people use these days is, "I married the wrong person" or, "I'm stuck in a loveless marriage." Don't misunderstand me, those are both bad situations, but they get used as excuses much too often.
Jacob fell in love with a young woman named Rachel. He agreed to work for Rachel's father, Laban, for seven years in exchange for Rachel's hand in marriage. The problem was that Rachel had an older sister, named Leah. The Bible doesn't really say much about what Leah looked like, although it does tell us that Rachel was beautiful and well favored (I suspect that if Leah were attractive, that would have been written down). Anyway, when the seven years were completed, Jacob went through the wedding ceremony, and started in on his honeymoon. When he woke up the next morning, though, he found that he had married Leah. The Bible doesn't really say, but I'm thinking there were large quantities of alcohol involved. Laban explained to Jacob that it was against custom to marry off the younger daughter before the older. I can only imagine that Jacob probably said something along the lines of, "You couldn't tell me this before the wedding?" Jacob might have been able to facilitate a husband for Leah, or at least have held off a little longer to get married...
Anyway, bigamy was not a crime, so Laban suggested that Jacob work another seven years, and, there were no other older sisters, so then he could marry Rachel. It seems to me that Jacob probably could have convinced Laban that seven years was too long, he had already worked seven years for Rachel, it wasn't his fault that he got stuck with Leah, but he didn't. He went along with the agreement. Was he afraid of devaluing Rachel by appearing to bargain for her? Rachel might have questioned his feelings for her, if he had said that he was only willing to serve, say, five years for her. Maybe he just wanted to stay on good terms with his father-in-law (that's generally good practice, if it's at all possible).
In any case, for seven years, he was married to Leah, and still very much in love with Rachel. I wonder how that made Leah feel? I suppose, in that day and age, she might have considered herself lucky to have a husband at all. I would hope not; no woman should ever have to feel lucky to have a husband that is clearly in love with another woman. At the same time, it's pretty clear that Jacob was good to her. There's a good chance that he treated her well only because he was afraid of how it would affect his relationship with Rachel if he didn't.
There is also an instance, after Jacob married Rachel, that Reuben, one of Leah's sons, found some mandrakes (I assume that they were alive when he found them, but he killed them and brought them home for dinner), and Rachel wanted mandrake for dinner. Leah told her sister that she could only have mandrake if Leah could have Jacob for the night. Rachel agreed, and when Jacob came home that night, Leah told him where he would be sleeping that night and why. Personally, I think I would have slept on the couch just out of principle. I can't believe that Jacob was happy about his wives negotiating over him; but he understood that, even as adults, there was a certain amount of sibling rivalry between the sisters. Usually, when we grow up, we get out from under the same roof, that rivalry goes away (it certainly worked for Jacob and Esau), but these two sisters lived under the same roof even as adults. Leah tried to be the better wife by having more children, which led Rachel to compete in that arena, too--as if she needed to compete for Jacob's affection. God tried to help Leah out; she ended up having a lot of kids.
And then Rachel died in childbirth, giving life to Benjamin (or Ben-oni), but Leah lived on for a number of years after that. I'm not sure that Jacob ever actually loved Leah, but somewhere along the line, they at least grew comfortable with each other.
I feel for Jacob and Leah; they pretty much had to settle for each other. I particularly feel for Leah; for her entire married life, she knew that her husband was in love with someone else. Some of that time, she had to compete with her sister's ghost. That can't possibly be easy. I think it's significant though that she and Jacob never gave up on their marriage. Part of that probably stems from the culture of the time, but I think it also has to do with their innate good nature. They wanted to do right by each other, even if neither one of them was particularly happy about the arrangement.

Women in the Bible (Part I)

What I would really like to post about is women in the Bible, but to do that subject justice may take a few days’ worth of blogging.
I have posted about Adam and Eve before, but let me just point out quickly that they were in it together. She gets the blame for ‘original sin,’ but he followed right behind her. In First Timothy 2:13-15, Paul makes the point that Adam was formed first, and then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but Eve was. Is that supposed to make me feel better about being a man? She was deceived, she didn’t know that what she was doing was wrong; if Adam wasn’t deceived, then he did know he was doing wrong, but he went ahead and did it anyway! Besides that, where was he when the serpent was talking to Eve? Why was he not there protecting his beloved?
The Bible doesn’t tell us much about Noah’s wife, and even less about Noah’s sons’ wives, but they must have been faithful women to go on board the ark.
Sarah was a faithful woman, although she has been criticized for laughing at the thought of having a child in her old age. Still, I don’t think Abraham believed any more then she did, he just was able to keep from laughing out loud. Of course, that may have had something to do with the fact that Abraham was sitting face to face with God, while Sarah was inside the tent—she may have thought that, in human form, God wouldn’t be able to hear her.
Abraham’s son, Isaac, married a woman named Rebekah. I blogged about her and her sons Jacob and Esau just recently.
Jacob had two wives, Rachel and Leah. The Bible says that Rachel was well favored, but Leah was tender-eyed. I’m not sure what it means to be tender-eyed (my guess would be she had allergies or maybe she just had very expressive eyes and looked at things tenderly), but I’m pretty sure that Rachel was very attractive and Leah, well, maybe Leah had nice eyes (and maybe she didn’t). One thing we know about the two women is that when Jacob took them away from their father’s house, Rachel stole some of her father’s idols. Why we would she do that? She knew that it wasn’t the custom of Jacob’s family to worship idols. Leah didn’t take any. Maybe Rachel just didn’t feel comfortable with only one God, yet. I’m tempted to comment that one should beware pretty women, but that’s not fair. Lot’s of good-looking women have been faithful to God, even though a few have not been; and lots of ugly women have gone very much against the commandments of God. The thing is, that we are naturally biased towards people whom we find attractive. A pretty women (or a handsome man) that wants to create problems can create a lot of problems, especially if she is subtle about it; but one that wants to do good, can do a lot of good, also.
Moses’ sister Miriam was a prophetess, but she got herself into trouble once because she spoke out against Moses’ wife, Zipporah. If that were the worst we have to say against Miriam, though, I would have to say she did pretty good. Very few of the men in the Bible only messed up once…
Rahab was a harlot, but she hid the Israeli spies from the soldiers at Jericho, and she and her family were spared. I would assume that she wasn’t a harlot anymore after that.
Deborah was a prophetess, who led the army of Israel into war, because the general had it in his head that she, being more easily led of God than he was, would be better able to ensure victory. There was a great victory that day, and the enemy of Israel was killed by another woman (not Deborah, a woman named Jael).
--More tomorrow

Maternal Instinct

We are taught, generally from a fairly young age, that mothers have a natural instinct to take care of their children. Of course, there are ways to suppress it; in today's society the obvious way would be with drugs: A strung out mother will sell her baby to get money to buy drugs. In this time of year, when we always think of Mary and the Baby, I thought I would share a little bit about what the Bible says.

In First Samuel chapter 1, we are told about a woman named Hannah, who very much wanted children, but couldn't have any. She went to temple and prayed, and ended up later giving birth to Samuel, the prophet for whom the book is named. In Genesis 30, Rachel became distraught that she didn't have children. Now, in both of these cases, the woman in question was one of two wives, who had no children, while the other wife bare children. Interestingly enough, in both cases, the barren wife was actually the favored of her husband; I'm not sure if there's any significance to that.

In Judges 11, Jephthah's daughter bewailed her virginity. Of course, I should point out that she was in trouble for celebrating her father's return from a victorious war (it's complicated); but, if she had not been a virgin, she would not have been celebrating her father's return, she would have been celebrating her husband's return, and would not have gotten into trouble. The end of this story has been interpreted many different ways, but, my reading is that she died, still a virgin.

I think that we are all familiar with King Solomon's famous exercise in wisdom in First Kings 3: He had to rule in a case where two mothers both claimed the same child, and he depended on the the maternal instinct to determine which woman was the child's mother (the other woman was willing to let the king kill the child).

In Second Kings chapter 6, there is a rather gruesome story that shows that it doesn't take drugs to override maternal instinct, just a very desperate situation. It's hard for me to imagine such a situation, but that may just be because I'm spoiled.