Quote:
Originally Posted by toddpedlar  The same God who said through Nathan "I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms" said that the King (of which David was an example) should not multiply wives, that his heart be turned away. Given this, is it not possible that what God has said is not any countenancing of the plural marriages that David walked into through gaining the crown, but that all this meant was "did I not give you everything that was Saul's, and yet you demand more?"
I could of course be wrong, but it seems to me the importance of this statement of the Lord's is that all that was Saul's David has succeeded to - including both house and wives (perhaps in some way a comprehensive statement of completeness of the succession). David has everything - now WHY has he gone after ANOTHER man's wife? |
Absolutely. The LORD - according to Nathan - was expressing his disappointment and exasperation with David's behavior.
But "I gave you...your master's wives into your arms" is a fairly explicit statement in and of itself, the meaning of which isn't changed because it's part of a larger statement. The LORD gave David those wives. He says so about as clearly as He could. How else could he phrase it so as to make it plainer, if that is indeed what He meant?
I'm reminded of the time several years ago when I was arguing with an egalitarian about the meaning of "But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything" (Eph. 5:24). If that
doesn't mean women are supposed to submit to their husbands, as the egalitarian insisted, then how could the LORD have made it any clearer? What did He not say that He should have said?
She couldn't come up with anything.
"I gave your master's wives into your arms." If that's not the LORD saying that the reason David had those wives is because the LORD gave them to him, I cannot think of how else He could have phrased it so that it
did mean that.
Mind, now, this is not me arguing in favor of polygamy as a Good Thing, but simply that it is not inherently sinful, for if it were, the LORD wouldn't have given men more than one wife (as the first cause; naturally, being sovereign,
everything we do is part of His grand, overarching design).