What is a concubine? Why did God allow men to have concubines in the Bible?

These were a class of inferior wives: they were at times personal servants given by wives to their husbands from their great desire for children, who then accounted the children of the servant as their own, as it was with Rachel and Leah. Such cases may have been comparatively rare, and would in no way account for the prevalence of men having concubines. Deut. 21:11 gives the root of it: a man saw a beautiful woman and lusted after her. God seems to have simply allowed it: as the Lord said about their easy way of writing a bill of divorcement: Moses permitted it 'because of the hardness of your hearts.' When God spoke of Israel having a king, one of the things forbidden to him was that of multiplying wives, lest his heart be turned away. Deut. 17:17. This alas, was the very fall of Solomon, who had 700 wives and 300 concubines, and they did turn away his heart. 1 Kings 11:3. In the Canticles we read of 60 queens and 80 concubines and virgins without number; but there was one, a choice one, the only one of her mother, that excelled them all — the bride of the song. Cant. 6:8-9. Est. 2:14 and Dan. 5:2 show that concubinage was a custom also among the heathen. Christianity disallows such evil, and recognises the relationship as established of God, and hence the sanctity of the marriage tie in those whom God joins together.

This Levite took a concubine. "Marriage is honorable among all" (Heb. 13:4), but co-habiting together apart from marriage is dishonorable. Often this is done because the man does not want the responsibilities of marriage. In the Old Testament various believers took concubines, but it was never with God's approval, though God bore with it at the time.

This is God's institution: He said it was not good that man should be alone, and He provided a suitable help for Adam in the person of Eve. Adam said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman (isha), because she was taken out of Man (ish). Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." Gen. 2:23-24. This declaration of union was confirmed by the Lord, who, in quoting the above, added, "Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." Matt. 19:5-6; Mark 10:7-9. It is confirmed also by being taken as a type of the sacred union of the Lord with the church: "We are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church." Eph. 5:30-32.

All this shows that God's institution of marriage was the union of one man and one woman, the two and only two, becoming one. What is more than this is not of God, but is of human lust. This order was first broken through by Lamech, the sixth from Adam, who had two wives. Long after this instances are recorded of wives, on account of their great desire for children, giving their maid servants to their husbands: an act that would now be judged as most unnatural in a wife. Sarai gave her Egyptian handmaid to Abram 'to be his wife' (the same word for 'wife' being used for both Sarai and Hagar), and God said He would make of Ishmael a great nation. Jacob's two wives gave their handmaids to their husband, and thus he had four wives. God reckoned the twelve sons of these four women equally as sons of Jacob, and they became the heads of the twelve tribes. It might have been thought that God would not have blessed the issue of these unions, but He did: there is no record of any law having been given on this subject.

We are told now of David's having six sons, each by a different wife (vs.2-5). Never was it God's intention that a man should have more than one wife. At the beginning He had said, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife" -- not "his wives." Yet under law God bore with bigamy and polygamy because of the hardness of men's hearts (cf.Mt.19:8). Also, far above men's natural thoughts, God used this occasion to illustrate various distinct characteristics of the Lord Jesus in His coming kingdom. Those who are interested to check this in detail will find the Numerical Bible (2 Samuel, pages 405-407) most enlightening. This enforces the striking truth that God can overrule man's failure in order to serve the greater purpose of highly exalting His beloved son, and reminds us that there will be certain precious fruits showing themselves in the Lord Jesus in "communion" (Hebron) before He reigns in glory.

As well as God's seeking to impress on us the reality of the relationship of Christ and the church, however, He is showing how close is the unity of husband and wife in God's sacred ordinance of marriage. Today this has been terribly violated by the selfish independence of both men and women, but God's word is plain, "For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (v.24). Thus God established marriage as the first of human relationships, and He makes it clear for all succeeding generations that a man should leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. It is just as evident that the woman should leave her parents to become fully devoted to her husbands. The word "cleave" is beautiful here. It involves the reality of love, of devotedness and of faithfulness.

From the beginning God's thought of marriage was one wife for one man. The man was to cleave to his wife, not to his wives. Its true that many Old Testament believers had more than one wife, but this was contrary to God's word, though He bore with it because of the hardness of men's hearts. Only in the New Testament was this corrected by the Lord Jesus, together with the question of divorce (Mt.19:9). Of course in the world today bigamy, polygamy, adultery and divorce are widespread. Only among Christians can we expect the true character of marriage to be maintained, and this should surely be the case since believers have known the living reality of the grace of God revealed in the person and work of their Lord and Savior, though too many believers also have succumbed to the attacks of the enemy in this matter, sadly failing in their Christian testimony.

As well as God's seeking to impress on us the reality of the relationship of Christ and the church, however, He is showing how close is the unity of husband and wife in God's sacred ordinance of marriage. Today this has been terribly violated by the selfish independence of both men and women, but God's word is plain, “For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (v. 24). Thus God established marriage as the first of human relationships, and He makes if clear for all succeeding generations that a man should leave his father and mother and cling to his wife. It is just as evident that the woman should leave her parents to become fully devoted to her husband. The word “cling” is beautiful here. It involves the reality of love, of devotedness and of faithfulness.

From the beginning God's thought of marriage was one wife for one man. The man was to cleave to his wife, not to his wives. It is true that many Old Testament believers had more than one wife, but this was contrary to God's word, though He bore with it because of the hardness of men's hearts. Only in the New Testament was this corrected by the Lord Jesus, together with the question of divorce (Matt. 19:9). Of course in the world today bigamy, polygamy, adultery and divorce are widespread. Only among Christians can we expect the true character of marriage to be maintained, and this should surely be the case since believers have known the living reality of the grace of God revealed in the person and work of their Lord and Savior, though too many believers also have succumbed to the attacks of the enemy in this matter, sadly failing in their Christian testimony.

Here, as we know by our Lord,s words, in the law of marriage, we find, more than any where, the failure of the law. The hardness of man's heart forbad, until grace should come, the full restraint of absolute righteousness. Polygamy and divorce, as practiced among the nations round, could only be modified by partial curbing of the will and prevention of mere lawlessness. It was reserved for Christianity to restore woman to her original place in creation by the side of man.

Yet here, where most of all (and that is surely the reason why the commandment takes the peculiar form it does,) the woman was in the hand and power of the man, he was fenced round with prohibition. She must be given the wife's place, allowed a month for natural sorrow over the separation from her kindred, perhaps to test also somewhat the reality of the affection that has sprung up in him. If the tie is formed, she can never be enslaved again; and should she be divorced, is free to go whither she please.

Thus it would seem that what is emphasized is the government of the will — the putting restraint upon desire, so that at least it shall not be lawless; and this, with regard to a captive, the legitimate property of the conqueror according to the customs everywhere else prevailing, is a witness to the character of Him who ruled in Israel, which we must estimate, not by the full light of Christianity now come, but as contrasted with what was around. Thus seen, it becomes indeed the dawning of the day.

The law could not directly forbid polygamy. Early had the human race escaped from the divine law of creation in this matter (Gen. 4:19), but in the race of Cain, and in the family of him whose song to his two wives so taken is in justification of homicide. At the new beginning after the flood, Noah and his three sons are found maintaining what began in Paradise.

The simplicity, the order, the rational character of these directions we learn as we study them; and this, too, we learn, that the wife's blood relations, her direct line excepted, are not viewed in the same light as the husband's own near of kin. Consanguinity, we repeat, is really the guiding principle on his side, whether it be as regards his blood relations, or his relations in law. On his wife's side he was not to marry her sister during her life. Now were his relations in law simply as such forbidden him, his wife's sister would be barred to him as much as his brother's wife. But it was not so. The brother's widow, except to fulfil the peculiar condition of the levirate law, he never was to make his wife, but his wife's sister he was free to marry after his wife's death. Again, relations in law, even on his side, are not by God viewed in the same light as relations in blood, as we have already pointed out. Further, the man and the woman are not in the Old Testament placed by God on equal ground. A man was permitted to have two wives (Deut. 21:15) by the law, but no woman was ever allowed to have two husbands. These simple facts kept in mind, we shall be preserved from drawing deductions, and imposing limitations on the creature's freedom in the matter of marriage, which God's word neither authorises nor countenances.

But human law on this subject is not always in harmony with God's revealed will. Restrictions which God has not imposed have been introduced, extending the prohibited degree of consanguinity beyond the limits laid down in the Word; and men have argued, and legislated as if relations in law, simply as such, were to be viewed in the same light as relations by blood. Were this in accordance with the word of God, the wife's sister must be forbidden to the man as much as his own sister. Now to go in to the latter was wickedness (20:17), and public execution was the punishment awarded to both. To marry the wife's sister was only forbidden to the man during the lifetime of the former, and no punishment is even hinted at if he married her subsequent to her sister's death. We cannot, therefore, argue that the wife's relations are placed on the same ground as the man's own.

In saying this, however, we would make it plain that we are not in the least advocating the advisability of such unions. It may not be expedient for first cousins to marry, but that is no reason why such unions should be forbidden by the Church of Rome, unless the parties get a dispensation from the Pope. It may not be expedient for a man to marry his deceased wife's sister, but that does not justify the promulgation of a law which prohibits it, by regarding it as a nullity, refusing to own the wife's status, and treating the children as bastards.

We have now the recognition of polygamy as a fact, but a provision against one of its many evils. If a man had two wives, and children by both, the one loved, the other hated; and if the first-born were the son of the hated; in this case, the first-born was not to be displaced from his rights as such because of the father's preference for the mother of the later-born. In the case of Jacob, this might seem to have occurred, — Reuben gave place to Joseph, the son of the beloved Rachel; but then, as we know from Jacob's own words, it was Reuben's sin that forfeited the inheritance. (Gen. 49:4.) This, however, might single out this case for special legislation.