Noah and Polygamy

In Genesis 2:19-25 God gave His ideal for marriage – one man and one woman in submission to God to who would leave their parents and join each other and become as one. This guidance from God was intact, and apparently obeyed by fallen man until the time of Lamech – one of the descendents of Cain. Lamech took two wives Genesis 4:19-24. The name of the first wife was Adah – whose name means “adornment” and Zillah – whose name means, “shadow” or “tinkling”. These two women apparently came from the lineage of Cain as well. The names give the foundational point of make up and jewelry. These “enhanced” women apparently were found to be attractive to Lamech.

One of the unique qualities of polygamy is that all through the Bible God warns against it for it creates family stress, and it has the unique quality of turning ones mind away from God. In addition it appears that polygamy, and the thoughts that go into polygamy – for polygamy is a rebellion against the standards of God, leads to violence. In the Lamech story, once Lamech has two wives he also gets into a situation where he kills someone. We do not know if Lamech’s murder of this young man was a fight over another woman, or if he was so inflamed by his two wives that he was more vengeful and irritable and chose to kill someone. Whatever the process history has shown that polygamy tends to stir up the worst in ones nature and leads to violent acts, and or acts that are not approved of by God, including murder.

With the story of Lamech in mind let us look as a few Scriptures and then we will return to the story of Noah and Polygamy. In Deuteronomy 7:1-8 we find the following instruction from the unchangeable God:

1 When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;
2 And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:
3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.
4 For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.
5 But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.
6 For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.
7 The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:

8 But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Notice in this section of Scripture God warns Israel to slay the Canaanites, don’t make covenants with them, don’t marry their wives, and destroys their idols and groves. All of this because they were to be a holy people – the sons and daughters of God. In addition God gives this same instruction to the future kings of Israel, especially David and Solomon, and adds the qualifier that they would turn the minds of the people away from God. Deuteronomy 17:17. All of this counsel came from the all wise and all compassionate God of heaven. It is our duty and opportunity to learn these things and to obey God for our self-preservation and for the exaltation of God’s name and character.

God tells this story over and over throughout Scripture. The people of Israel followed these behaviors and it lead to the state of rebellion which God addressed in the Babylonian captivity. Israel kept leaving God and joining the heathen in all of their practices. This same issue was addressed by Ezra and Nehemiah after Israel returned from their captivity. Ezra 10:1-5 and Nehemiah 13:23-31.

This mindset of polygamy has been present all through history and has played itself out in many different settings. Paul warns us about polygamy and getting married to people who have no relationship with God. In II Corinthians 6:11-18 Paul warns us to not get unequally yoked with non-believers and compares it with an attempted union between Christ and Belial. God also addresses the spirit of these kinds of activities in warning against fornication in I Corinthians 6:9-20.

God also warns against the principles of polygamy in Ephesians 4:1-16. God wants us to respond to one Lord, one faith, one baptism. God does not want us to get involved with other churches and other religions, He wants us to stay with one church. As we are taught in the Bible, God “sees” a church as a woman (II Corinthians 11:2; Jeremiah 6:2; Isaiah 54:5-6; Revelation 12:1). God wants us to have one woman in our lives – as a church as well as one wife, or one husband in the physical sense of the word.

God reemphasizes this in Revelation 14:4 where He tells us that His holy people are not defiled with women. Since marriage is not defiling then it is clear that God is not talking about marriage and the sexual privileges that go with marriage. God is talking about negative relationships with apostate, or false churches – sort of the Adah, Zillah, or Babylon of our time. This “ecumenical” spirit is also one of the things that God wants us to avoid for it will lead to false worship and the kinds of problems that Solomon experienced in his time with his 700 wives and 300 concubines. I Kings 11:1-11

With all of this data in mind let us return to the story of Noah. In Genesis 6:1-13 God declares that His people – the sons of God (Luke 3:38; I John 3:1-2; John 1:12), saw that the daughters of men (the wicked descendents of Cain – Adah and Zillah) were fair. There was apparently something about the beauty of the daughters of men, their makeup, their jewelry, their forwardness and brashness, that attracted the eyes of the sons of God and lead them to desire women who did not have a relationship with Jesus. As a result of this lusting after forbidden fruit, the sons of God, took them wives (plural) of all which they chose. We are not told that they understood the warnings of God about plural marriages but we do know that God had given much instruction and they certainly knew the will of God to have one wife. Yet as a result of this sin of multiple marriages, it had its invariable conclusion – people grew violent, their hearts were turned away from God, and they introduced false worship, idolatry, and then evil continually. This set of events led to the conclusion by God that He would need to preserve humanity with the only way left – destruction of man by a flood of water.

When God decided that the time had come, He found a man that remained true to His principles. He found a man who obeyed Him and even had one wife. This man had trained his sons and they also had one wife only. This shows that the household of Noah was commandment keepers and that since they were commandment keepers, they had a right relationship with God. Noah was not a polygamist. As a result of being true to God Noah received the spiritual gifts he was longing for and he became the prophet of God, the spokesperson for God.

Now, in our time, God has warned us of the same issues as in the time of Noah. Matthew 24:36-39 tells us that the same issues will be occurring as in the time of Noah. That would mean that polygamy, in all of its various forms – relational and spiritual- would be present. It is our opportunity today to turn away from all forms of polygamy and to be granted the gifts of the Spirit to teach people to get ready for the next cleansing of the earth. May God help us to learn from Noah and to be in right relationship with God.