Why do you believe that David having to take care of Sauls wives, means he slept with them? Chapter and verse, thanks.
Also why do you believe that because a man takes more than one wife, it means God is ok with it, after God already said not to do it?
I appreciate your inquisitive tone, vs. a defensive tone.
I fully respect and understand your perspective, and I further recognize that you are anchored in your stance. I am expressing this, because I want to make it clear that I know I am not here to change minds and debate.
This topic is more of an information share, that appears to be causing discussion over biblical passages on marriage, adultery, polygamy, Law, Jesus and other topics that are extremely valuable to search and understand, from the biblical perspective.
Having gotten the disclaimer out of the way.....
(I will openly answer your questions (From my opinionated perspective), as openly and honestly as I possibly can.
1Q) Why do you believe that David having to take care of Sauls wives, means he slept with them.
1A) An honest question deserves a respectfully researched answer... The key verse about Saul's wives is,
of-coarse, 2 Sam. 12:8... In it, there is specific phraseology...
It is either into your arms or into your care...
Actual Hebrew study of this text reveals that the best understanding is "Into your Care".
(bə-ḥê-qe-ḵā, בְּחֵיקֶ֔ךָ into your care Noun)
- That being said, I will keep matters simple here. I will reference 1 Kings 1:
"1 Now King David was old and advanced in years. And although they covered him with clothes, he could not get warm. 2 Therefore his servants said to him, “Let a young woman be sought for my lord the king, and let her wait on the king and be in his service.
1Kp1Let her lie in your arms,a that my lord the king may be warm.” 3 So they sought for a beautiful young woman throughout all the territory of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king. 4
1Kp2 The young woman was very beautiful, and she was of service to the king and attended to him,
1Kp3 but the king knew her not.
For Reference... I am using red writing with notation like
1Kp1. This is simply saying 1st Kings Chapter quoted implied and p for point (1) or (2) and so on...
I will also submit Ezekiel 23 as an extreme example of a point I am making. I fully understand the metaphorical tone of Ezk. 23, but it carries a valid assertion of an important point.
Ezekiel 23:19 Yet she increased her whoring, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt 20 and
EZKp1 lusted after her lovers there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses.
EZKp1) This stands to support the point that the bible is an extremely sexual book. This fact is overlooked, but it includes passages of rape (Though rape is disgusting and violent and thus an act of violence and not sex, it remains a distorted sexually explicit act), masculine withdrawal during intercourse (example when Tamar's second husband didn't want to have a son with the surname of his first brother, and was clearly expelling the DNA that was building the lineage of the Son of God.. as Tamar is directly in the blood lineage of Jesus), incest, Prostitution, Sexual Bliss (the Song of Songs or Solomon), Commandment to have a ton of marital relation with one's spouse (Be fruitful and multiply, commanded to two individuals that were naked before one another and unashamed)...... etc... etc...
Following forward in this logic, the bible doesn't always say every little detail... When David counted coup by cutting part of Saul's robe while he was "covering his feet" in the cave, which is understood as expelling digested food, we see that deification can be mentioned in the bible.
However, Jesus is the incarnation of God, from my perspective... (no, I don't want to split hairs about this or be questioned... I recognize Jesus as the presence of God among Man as "The Son of God and The Son of Man", as it says in scripture... We know that Jesus ate food and had a fully functional human body, but nowhere in scripture does it mention Jesus "covering his feet". Does this mean that Jesus never defecated? Absolutely not. if this were so, the bible would have said; "Jesus never covered his feet".
Now, moving on...
1Kp1) It is explaining that the young virgin that would be found would lay with David to keep him warm in his old age. it is very likely that the heat would come from nakedness shared, but not specifically stated. We do know that body heat is best created between people in Nakedness, thus the survival technique of laying naked with someone in the freezing cold, to raise body temperature is a point to mention here. This is common knowledge and fair to cite.
1Kp2) There is no doubt that David LOVED feminine beauty. He started his Kingly troubles by peeping on Bathsheba, who was naked and bathing to cleanse herself from her monthly time. This is very symbolic, but that is out of scope.
1Kp3) "but the king knew her not"... Knew... Made Love With... We even use the term, "to know a person biblicaly" to this very day. It directly and unquestionably infers sexual intimacy. Unlike much biblical verbiage that has been redefined and is misused today, to "KNOW" someone is still spot on as it was in the days of Adam and Eve.
- Why is this important? Because the Bible is so specific that men and women enjoy having sex and it is such a normal part of life and especially marriage that it is specifically cited when it is not on the table. Directly in relation to our young and vigorous David, the old and calmed down David, is specified as Laying with the beautiful virgin Abishag in his old age, but "the king knew her not"
- It explains that he didn't have sex with her.
- Part of marriage is absolutely sex and with all of these points, it is fair to say that if any of those wives of Saul had "beauty", the king "KNEW" them well.
Just to tack on one more point, a son can be very telling of the father, and in Solomon, we see another man that LOVED to KNOW women, in a biblical sense.
2Q) why do you believe that because a man takes more than one wife, it means God is ok with it, after God already said not to do it?
2A) God does not chastise David or Israel/Jacob for taking multiple wives and clearly conceiving with them. Another point is that conception was not an act of duty, but as always, unless a person is being dishonest with themselves, but as within all wholesome, consenting sexual unions, an exciting event full of intimacy and good experiences. (Disclaimer: all experiences differ in some way or another... added for humor)
God clothed our souls with beautiful flesh... It is more beautiful than any clothing we can create, but after the fall, humanity was ashamed of what God made and clothed it. God supported this by slaughtering an animal and providing clothing for Adam and Eve.
It is safe to assume that God is proud of our nakedness. As a result of stepping into the void of Heavenly Distrust of God and entering into doing things our way... (Trying to be like God, knowing good and evil...) we needed to cover up our nakedness and God later uses this analogy as a way of saying to show ones nakedness is to 'shame" them, though He created flesh as our clothing and made it appealing because He is awesome like that.
This dialogue shows that God is complex and adapts to our mistakes.
Ideally, one and one is the recipe for good sex and a lifetime and eternity of bliss.
However, contention and discord among humanity has ripped that option from the arms of perfection.
Clearly, polygamy was a result of our failure to trust God.
Does God hold us to pain and beat the daylight out of us for being imperfect? NO! He is adaptive to realistic recognition of our condition and understands our thoughts, motives, intentions, wickedness and goodness better than we ever will.
When the Law was given, mankind saw it from a narrow perspective and tended to look at it as mere rules to please God. However, the entire Bible reveals a completely different purpose for the Law.
Above all things, Moses was given to prophesy the coming revelation of God's infinite and limitless love.
Humanity is obtuse, unmerciful, distrusting, rule orientated and rigid!
God is brilliant, merciful, ALL Knowing, Adaptive and Situationaly Pro-Active.
There is deep dichotomy in God's ways and our ways. But to end this book...
God utilized humanity in scripture to show how He is Love and Life, while mankind is typically Hostile and Dark. God's core hostility always stems from humanities lack of MERCY.
To be somewhat humorous, but dead accurate... God doesn't put His "Angry Eyes" on when humanity screws up or is outside of Moses and His statutes. He puts His angry eyes on when humanity destroys itself and is void of Mercy and Love.
Egypt was slavery and teachings of and about God(s) that demanded blood of humanity. Journey from this was God granting freedom and the command to let go of the lies about Him that were in the people's hearts from being exposed to the idea of God(s) that were violent, nasty and demanding of death and sacrifice of actual humanity.
What the Helen of Troy is my point?
God utilized David in His imperfection and accepted his human lust as part of who David was. He also recognized the circumstances that brought about multiple wives. He not only overlooked David's Polygamy, but counted it righteous. How do I know this?
Because of this...
1 Kings 15:5 "because David did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and did not turn aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite."
Unless one counts scripture as mealy mouthed, it says it in plain words that cite the incident of Uriah and thus all encompassed with Bathsheba (who was Uriah's wife).
One last point. I hold scripture far beneath Jesus and His literal presence in our life. Scripture wasn't available for Abraham, Noah or Enoch and yet their relationship with God and Loving Kindness towards their fellow humanity identified them as people of God.
Jesus is the WORD of God and the fulfillment of the Law. Scripture merely points to Him.
I hope this answers your two exceptionally written questions.
