HOME | BOOKS/BOOKLETS | THE MAGAZINE
SITE MAP | EMAIL

CONTENTS | PREVIOUS | NEXT

PAGE 26

WE have seen that God's will with regard to marriage was inwrought in His method of forming the first pair. There was one man and one woman, the woman made a help meet for the man. They had not a common origin in the dust as the male and female of other animals, but the woman was "of the man", "bone of his bone" and "flesh of his flesh" and therefore woman, or "outman". Therefore "a man shall cleave to his wife and they shall be one flesh". This Edenic rule is restored by the Lord to its place as the standard to which men and women must conform; because a man and woman when married "are no more twain" but "one flesh", therefore said Jesus: "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." In those terms Jesus enunciates the divine law of marriage.

We have used the word "restored" for when we look at the interval between Adam and Christ we find that the Edenic law had not been preserved. And if, as Jesus said they were, the concessions of Moses' law were because of men's hardness of heart, we may say that the same cause brought the departure from the rule made at creation.

It is necessary to review the Old Testament history, and to examine the law given to Israel, in order to find out the

PAGE 27

effects of the entrance of sin in the declension of marriage standards; to learn how far changes were allowed by God; and also as far as possible to understand why these changes were allowed. This is the more necessary if we would understand the references of Jesus to Jewish practices and also to follow the discussions he had with the Jewish authorities on the subject. Adam and Eve were the first pair, and for a time the only pair. We are told of the birth of the sons whose lives and conduct had lessons concerning God's purpose for later generations: Abel who worshipped God acceptably; Cain who hated and then murdered his brother, and whose worship expressed his self-will and failure to recognize the sundered fellowship with God; Seth who took the place of murdered Abel as the progenitor of the line of "the woman's seed" -- of these sons of Adam we have brief but significant histories. But of the other "sons and daughters" that "Adam begat" we have no particulars. We have no information what proportion of the nine hundred years of life of a woman of those days were child bearing years. Adam was a hundred and thirty when Seth was born and Eve presumably was nearly the same age. We do not know whether other sons preceded Seth who were not selected instead of Abel, for the chosen line in the Scripture genealogies is not always the firstborn. But Cain and Seth and the other sons all found wives, and must have found them in Adam's family. The first two or three generations must have witnessed marriages of brothers and sisters; of uncles and aunts born of a younger branch to nieces and nephews of an older family; of cousins of first and second remove. These arrangements were inevitable and were entered into without offence.

In the seventh generation of the line of Cain we have the first record of bigamy. We are probably right, having

PAGE 28

regard to the deep significance of the events selected for narration, in concluding that this bigamous marriage was the first of its kind. Lamech was clearly a man of the flesh, boastful, proud and defiant of God (Jude 14, 15). He was the prototype of the men in history who have usurped authority over their fellows through possession of better weapons of destruction -- a race not yet extinct.

In the days of Noah, the tenth generation from Adam, there was a sharp decline in moral standards. The wickedness of man was great, the imagination of the thoughts of his heart continually evil; the earth was corrupt and filled with violence. At the forefront of this bad record is the account of an outbreak of gross immorality. "The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and took them wives of all which they chose." Home life gave place to wild habits and so widespread were the effects of immoral ways that Noah and his family alone found grace in God's sight. The treatment was drastic; the divine surgeon knew there was no cure; and a new beginning was made with two people six hundred years old, and their three sons and their wives. "As the days of Noah were, so shall the coming of the Son of man be." "In the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage" is the Lord's summary of the careless abandon of men and women at the close of antediluvian times. Putting his words in the Old Testament context enables us to see that his reference to marriage is not to divinely regulated unions but to licentiousness thinly veneered with forms of marriage.

The description of the state prevailing at the time of the flood has led many expositors (including The Companion Bible) to interpret the "sons of God" as a reference to an

PAGE 29

angelic order guilty of illicit union with women of the human race, whose hybrid progeny performed such exploits as are memorialized in ancient mythologies. But this view is to be rejected for many reasons, a final one being that angels cannot die any more and therefore cannot sin, and when the redeemed of Adam's race are made equal to the angels they will not only have been "delivered from the body of death" but also from all the "motions of sin" which now exercise such power in the body.

In the law of Moses, in Leviticus chapters 18 and 20 and Deuteronomy chapter 27, we find that marriages are prohibited some of which must necessarily have been entered into by Adam's immediate descendants. A man was not allowed to marry his mother, stepmother, sister, niece, aunt, or the closer relations of his wife. In some cases no penalty is laid down, but in others the severest penalty of death is decreed; while in others the culprits were cursed. In one particular instance of the deceased husband's brother, the Levirate law provided a remarkable exception to these laws. Not only in antediluvian times were some of these unions, forbidden to Israel, entered into without offence, but in the patriarchal age some such practices prevailed upon which no condemnation is passed. Abraham married his half-sister; Jacob married two sisters; Amram, the father of Moses, "took his father's sister to wife". What could not be avoided at one period in man's history was permitted in another, and yet later forbidden by God with an exception provided under special circumstances. A recognition of these facts may help in measure to understand other features which are not free from perplexity.

Reference has been made to the polygamy of Lamech, and the probable prevalence of this and of worse practices

PAGE 30

in Noah's day. In patriarchal times we find polygamy practised by Abraham, and there is no indication that such arrangements were unusual. In fact, from outside the Scriptures we know it was not unusual. Hagar, it should be noticed, was Sarah's bondwoman, and it was at Sarah's suggestion that she became Abram's slave-wife; as it was also at her demand that Hagar was later dismissed. Jacob had two wives and two slave-wives, the four being mothers of the twelve patriarchs. From the proportion of firstborn (22,373) to males above twenty (603,500) at the Exodus, some have inferred that polygamy was practised to a fair extent among the Israelites in Egypt. The Canaanitish nations were riddled with vice and corruption so great that nothing but their extermination met the demands of holiness. Yet their immoralities, too vile for narration, belonged to the moral atmosphere of the time.

The law of Moses regulated polygamy, forbidding a man to take two sisters to be his wives (Lev. 18:18), and laying down the rights of a slave-wife (Exod. 21:10). Kings were counselled against plural wives (Deut. 17:17), the wisdom of which was seen in the disasters in later history which followed its disregard. Injustice, springing from favouritism, in the distribution of property among children of two wives, was guarded against (Deut. 21:15-17). Regulations are given concerning the treatment of women taken captive in war to be slave-wives (Deut. 20:10-15).

It is evident the law recognized the practice of polygamy, but regulated it in such a way as would act as a restraint. Nevertheless, in the history of Israel there are references to extensive freedom in practice with regard to polygamy. We need not recapitulate the numbers of wives and concu-

PAGE 31

bines which some kings possessed. Some good men like Elkanah, had "two wives", and on one occasion a priest, Jehoiada, took two wives for the king Joash (2 Chron. 24:3). The practice of polygamy does not appear to have been widely followed after the exile; the gospels are silent about it during Christ's ministry; and while Jewish rabbis in their teaching recognized for a long time in the Christian era that it was permissible, in fact practice was better than precept, although economics rather than morals may have been the stronger influence.

A polygamous system fosters the practice of divorce. Sarah demanded that Abraham should "cast out" -- that is, divorce -- Hagar; and disinherit Ishmael. The code of Hammurabi, which was discovered nearly fifty years ago, contains laws which throw light on the history of Abraham in this particular. One regulation (Law 146) provides for the case of a wife acting as Sarah did. The law enacts: "If a man has married a wife, and that she has given a maid servant to her husband, and the maid-servant has borne children, if afterwards that maid-servant makes herself equal with her mistress as she has borne children, her mistress shall not sell her for silver -- she shall place a mark upon her, and count her with the maid-servants." In keeping with this law is Abraham's statement: "Behold, thy maid is in thine hand, do to her as it pleaseth thee." When later, at the weaning of Isaac, Sarah saw Ishmael mocking and demanded the casting out of Ishmael, Abraham demurred. "The thing was grievous in his sight, because of his son." We can now see one reason why Abraham so regarded Sarah's demand. The current code forbade the action. Law 170 of Hammurabi reads: "If a man his wife have borne him sons, and his maid-servant have borne him sons,

PAGE 32

the father in his lifetime has said to the sons which the maid servant has borne him 'my son', has numbered them with the sons of his wife; after the father has gone to his fate, the sons of the maidservant shall share equally in the goods of the father's house, the sons that are sons of the wife at the sharing shall choose and take." God, however, overruled the human law and instructed Abraham to follow Sarah's wishes, and so there was enacted what became an "allegory" of the rejection of Israel, as Paul explains in Galatians 4.

The Code of Hammurabi, however, reflects the customs of Abram's time, and the very necessity for regulations on these domestic matters demonstrates how widespread was the practice of a man having more than one wife.

The Law of Moses permitted divorce, although the very permission was given in such a form that it acted as a deterrent. The passage in Deut. 24:1-4 is so important, however, in connection with the discussion between the Lord and the Pharisees that more than a passing reference is called for, and it will be considered later. We do not know how extensive was the appeal to this law of divorce during Israel's history, but there cannot be any doubt that it was really a concession to human weakness. Not only have we the Lord's saying that it was permitted because of the hardness of men's hearts, but a statement in Malachi expressed God's mind on the matter. It reads: "Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did he not make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and

PAGE 33

let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the Lord of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously" (Mal. 2:14-16).

There were doubtless circumstances prevailing at the time of Malachi which called forth the rebuke,(See Prophets After The Exile (John Carter), pages 189-194) but in view of God's mind expressed at creation, and later reiterated by God's son, it must have been true at all times that "The Lord, the God of Israel, hateth putting away". God may have "overlooked" the evil of the practices which had a general vogue and in which the men of His choice engaged; He may have conceded divorce in the Law He gave to Israel, but these things were allowed because man had come "under sin" and his original innocency had been lost. "Yet the Lord hateth putting away" -- it was not a part of holiness of truth.

It may help us to understand this if we compare another department of life where a similar toleration of evil is discernible. Human slavery is generally recognized as abhorrent and contrary to the conscience of men today. That any man should have power over the body and soul of another is a violation of the personality which is a human right. Yet in patriarchal times slavery existed; the Law of Moses regulated it, forbidding the worst abuses that spring from it. Even in Christian times nothing is said directly forbidding it; Paul sent back the slave Onesimus; he enjoined good service upon slaves who believed, as he called for just treatment by Christian masters towards their slaves. Men of otherwise high ideals have felt no qualms of con-

PAGE 34

science in owning slaves: some of the brethren in the early days of Dr. Thomas were slave-owners. Yet it was never intended that men should be bought and sold by their fellows; such evil is a consequence of sin's sway. At some periods slavery has been very extensive. Slave labour made possible much of the great buildings of Egypt and Babylon; Greece at the time of its intellectual glory had more slaves than free men; the households of Roman nobles included a very large number of slaves.

Where God's revelation has been known, godly men have tempered the severity of the evil, and in some cases men have probably been in a better state under a good owner than free men who are subject to the economic pressure of an industrialized age. But as licence concerning marriage and freedom of divorce destroy the home life which is basic to ordered social well being, so slavery, too, though less fundamental, is a disruptive influence in a community's life.

CONTENTS | PREVIOUS | NEXT