A brother left the following comments on the blog, reinforcing the message that we posted on Polygyny. Most of you will not have read these comments, so I asked him if it would be okay to post it as an article. Thus with his permission we are very blessed to share this with you. I just want you to know that he is a research physicist at one of our universities here, so the examples that he uses are backed by his professional expertise.
Comments/thoughts:
Thank you for standing up for this matter! The break
down of the family unit seems to be high up on the enemy’s agenda, causing the
downfall of this generation, providing him easy access to the coming
generation. As he worked this through Balaam to destroy the nation of
To the many good points quoted above, I would like
to add some more - to share with those who may consider going that way, to save
them, their families, and the body of Messiah from harm.
1) We husbands still fall terribly short of loving
our wives according to our Master’s standard. We still fail the commandment to
love our wives “as Messiah the Congregation”! How could we then ever think
about adding another wife, which will make us even fail more in love! A husband
trying to serve the one wife’s special need, will unavoidably neglect the
other. Focusing on the needs of the one, he will have to draw his attention
from the other. As one cannot serve two different masters equally, one cannot
love two different wives equally. Adding a wife is going in the wrong direction
concerning our goal of growing in love and “becoming one”.
2) We are created, both husband and wife, with a
desire to be exclusively loved: SoS 8:6 Set me as a seal on your
heart, as a seal on your arm. For love is strong as death… and the
verse continues jealousy is cruel
as Sheol. From all the examples of the resulting jealousy we
find in scripture and the world around us, how could we –if we love our wives–
even consider taking this risk, thinking that “touching this fire will not burn
us”? Human jealousy is a destructive force that man cannot endure (Prov
6:34-35), destroying the key foundations of marriage – the underlying trust on
both sides, quenching love. In men it causes “rage, uncontrollable anger” and
Elohim gave special instructions for when the spirit of jealousy overcomes a
man (Num 5:14...). Don’t cause your wife to suffer something that you are not
even able to handle or endure. Don’t invite this spirit into your house, for
–whether to man or to woman– its fire is painful to the depth of the soul!
3) We cannot look back and apply the same standard
to us, which Elohim in his mercy had for a fallen creation with “hard hearts”
in the old covenant. Messiah’s answer (concerning the granted divorce which
Elohim hated, but allowed because of their hard hearts) was “…but it was not
this way from the beginning”. Our Father send the redeemer, to create in us a
new heart, no longer hard as stone, to renew our mind according to the mind of
Messiah, to restore us back to His perfect will, according to which He created
us in the beginning when He made us, in Eden: “Therefore a man shall leave
his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife [Singular!] and
they shall become one (echad, unified) flesh. We no longer
should live as a fallen creation, but we are restored – We are a NEW creation!
4) Our Master’s last prayer for us was that, we
would “become one”. In the context of Marriage between husband and wife,
this starts with “becoming one flesh”. Our own physiology, that is the way we
were created, already shows that we are meant to be one husband and one
wife. The first time husband and wife come together, the hymen breaks and
the blood is shed and both become literally one flesh, one human organism. Now
being one, every consecutive time they come together is like a memorial of this
blood covenant.
There is no physiological way a normal man can be
physically one with more than one wife, simultaneously.
Complete physiological unity in marriage works only
between two, one man and one woman. If you add another woman, maybe the man can
be physiologically one with each one of them at different times, but the two
women can never be physiologically one with each other. Hence, the
husband+2wives triplet can never be physiologically completely one.
As the incompatibility in physiology between the two
wives already warns, the examples of polygyny in scripture strongly points to
the emotional incompatibility in marriage to the same man. And so the problem
of incompatibility between the two wives will consequently become a key problem
to the whole family, which will fail trying to “become one”. This must be a strong
warning to us husbands, for we will not be able to fulfill our responsibility
to lead our family in unity. Polygyny will rather destroy it and will
undoubtedly hurt our wives and our children and our children’s children. And
eventually we will have to give account for it.
5) The fundamental concept of “two united” we find not
only in our physiology, but is revealed even in the lowest level; in the very
matter which Elohim formed our bodies out of. Proton and Electron (the basic
particles forming the atoms) are electrically charged particles – of opposite
charge. As these opposites attract, one Electron and one
Proton will form a stable union, the Hydrogen atom. The Proton being the heavy
center, around which the Electron oscillates. Both are attracted and kept
stable together by their opposite charge.
Now, it is true that you can temporarily form a
weakly stable Hydride atom, in which two Electrons oscillate around one Proton
- but it will strongly react with its environment and its structure will quickly
fall apart. And as long as it exists, both Electrons will indeed try to come as
close as they can to the Proton, but stay as far as they can apart from each
other.
6) Now, the unity between Proton and Electron goes even
deeper. The closer Proton and Electron come together, the stronger is the
attracting force between them. When one Proton and one
Electron come extremely close to each other, the force will be extremely strong
and they will combine to form a new particle, the Neutron. The Neutron is no
longer electrically charged - as a unit all opposites in charge are eliminated.
As Elohim separated the first Adam into two human beings, man & woman, also
the human characteristics are being divided between two humans of opposite
kind, being attracted to each other by their complementing differences. As they
become one, they form the complete human being, no longer individually
incomplete but a complementing unity.
Back to the matter of the elementary particles our
bodies consist of: This unity only works between one Proton and exactly one
Electron, not two.
7) Beside all the warning examples of polygyny in
scripture, it is further interesting to note that the first polygyny of mankind
appears in the cursed line of Cain. While the seventh from Adam in the obedient
line, Enoch walked with Elohim, the seventh in the cursed line, Lamech, chose
to become a murderer and take two wives. The one followed life, the other
death. The one lineage (seed) was saved through the flood, the other ended with
it. As the article states, the restored creation started again with couples of
one husband and one wife. And not only for mankind, but also for all the
animals, who were saved in pairs!
As husbands, let us not allow the enemy to harm the
miracle of Elohim, who made each of us one with his wife. Rather, let each one
of us work with more with his heart to love his wife as Messiah His
congregation.
The whole idea of a man in the believing community having two wives is highly offensive to the other women. We are not living on isolated islands and therefore permitted to do whatever pleases a certain man. This would cause such division and hurt. In the one case I am personally aware of, it felt worse than seeing a couple divorce. All I could do is ask "why would he hurt his wife in such a cruel manner?" It seems very selfish to me and quite opposite of a husnand laying down his life for the beloved wife of his youth.
ReplyDeleteThe whole idea of a man in the believing community having two wives is highly offensive to the other women. We are not living on isolated islands and therefore permitted to do whatever pleases a certain man. This would cause such division and hurt. In the one case I am personally aware of, it felt worse than seeing a couple divorce. All I could do is ask "why would he hurt his wife in such a cruel manner?" It seems very selfish to me and quite opposite of a husnand laying down his life for the beloved wife of his youth.
ReplyDeleteVery well put. "From the beginning it was not so"--and that is argument enough for any reasonable and faithful man. May this destructive practice (of more than one wife) be demolished in the church and in the earth.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting the the meanings of the names of the wives in the first plural marriage: Adah = Ornament, Zilla = Shade. Quite literally a trophy wife and one who is in the shadows. How is that a foundation for a good marriage?
ReplyDeletePS. There is a very interesting point on the stability of the Neutron. For if this newly created particle stays by itself, it is not completely stable: its life span is “only” about 15minutes due to its inner dynamics governed by the “weak force”. [However, compared to the short lifespan of other elementary particles –some nanoseconds, others even much less– 15min is a whole lifetime!] But the Neutron will stay stable for uncountable years if it is embedded in the core of an atom, bound together side by side with other Neutrons and Protons by the “strong force”. We can learn from that, that as believers we are not islands, we are part of one body. We need each other! We need each other’s help. We are codependent, as the holy spirit spread His gifts among us. Protons, Electrons and Neutrons can exist individually, but to fulfill their purpose they have to work together. All creation, all that we can see and touch, Elohim made by having them work together, structured, intelligently placed, each according to its ability. To fullfil our purpose we –families with husband, wife and children, alongside single men and single women– need to be “being build together into one spiritual house” in which our Father's Holy Spirit can reign!
ReplyDeleteI have told every brother who ever agreed with polygyny that at no time did one of those arrangements work out well for anyone. From Sarah's gift of Hagar to Abraham, we are dealing with contention between Ishmael and Jacob to this day. From Jacob's arrangement with Lean, Rachel and the 2 concubines, we are dealing with family dysfunctions to this day. King David's family was a wreck because of sexual sin and multiple wives. And then comes Solomon... Enough said on that!
ReplyDeleteWhat these lusting men fail to realize where Sarah and Jacob were concerned was that they were dealing cultural situations. In the ancient Near East, the wife was to produce a child within a year of marriage. The fact that Abraham did not dump Sarah for not producing a child is proof of his love for her. But on her side would have been a horrible angst about not having given Abraham a son. Ishmael is a circumcised Hebrew and his descendants will have inheritance in the Kingdom but Ishmael is the product of Sarah doing the wrong thing. She chose culture over YHVH's plan.
Jacob, too, adhered to culture. He got trapped into marrying the woman intended for his brother, Esau. Once again, Jacob was stepping up to do his duty as the selected firstborn of Isaac but the woman he wanted was not Leah, it was Rachel.
Both Leah and Rachel entered into "baby production wars" using their respective concubines for the purpose. Herein lies the conundrum for our lusty Hebrew Roots males who think they want to foist another wife or concubine on their wives. They cannot legally be married to 2 women at once and they have no legal leg to stand on in the scripture. The other part of this is that these men will have to submit to their wives' wishes regarding concubines because it was the wife who gave the concubine to the husband. He did not select the concubine himself.
It saddens me that this fleshly issue is so important to some men as we approach the world's meltdown called the Tribulation. Don't they have anything better to think about than than satisfying their flesh?
Kimberly Rogers-Brown
I've heard someone say that the second marriage may not be legal in man's economy, but he and the extra wife/wives are married before God so therefore it's legal in God's economy. I get concerned for people thinking this way. It causes so much hurt and emotional damage to the wives and especially the children.
ReplyDelete