APPENDIX, No I.
Referred to vol. i. p. 108.
In which the case of Hannah—1 Sam. i.—is more particularly considered.
AS I should be sorry to be misled myself, so I should be equally anxious not to mislead others, with respect to any scripture quoted, referred to, or explained in the foregoing pages, and so many of which have been employed to prove that polygamy is neither against any law given before the Sinai-covenant, nor against any law then delivered; consequently, is not sinful—for sin is not imputed where there is no law—and where there is no law there is no transgression. Rom. v. 13. iv. 15.
As a proof of God's own sentiments on the matter, I have produced the striking instance of Elkanah the Levite, and his two wives, Peninnah and Hannah; and by considering Hannah as taken after, and in the lifetime of Peninnah, have drawn arguments, which appear to me conclusive, with regard to the main point, viz. that if polygamy was a transgression of the original institution of marriage—of the seventh commandment—or of any other positive law of God, it is highly unreasonable and absurd to suppose, that God, should so signally bless, and own it as lawful, in so many instances, and particularly in that of Hannah.—But I find it is an usual opinion, and that several commentators rather seem to embrace it, that Peninnah was the second wife, and Hannah the first; I have the more earnestly and more diligently examined the whole passage, as willing to retract what I have said if it be false, as to abide by it if it be true.
The ground on which the opinion that Hannah was the first wife is built, is a very uncertain one, viz. that "she is named first," 1 Sam. i. 2. But the very next sentence furnishes us with just as good a reason for supposing Hannah was the second, for there Peninnah stands first—And Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children:—and the reason still grows stronger for supposing Peninnah to be first, ver. 4. for there she is not only mentioned first, but has the precedency of a first wife given her by her husband Elkanah, who served her first of the peace-offerings:—And when the time was come that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and daughters, portions; and to Hannah he gave a more worthy portion, for he loved Hannah; i. e. she was his favourite, as Rachel was Jacob's, Gen. xxix. 30. The custom of placing the eldest first was very ancient, as we find, Gen. xliii. 33. And they set before him, the eldest according to his birth-right, and the youngest according to his youth—and he took and sent messes to them from before him; but Benjamin's was five times as much as any of theirs. Benjamin was distinguished as the favourite of his brother Joseph, though younger than all the rest; so was Hannah, the youngest or after-taken wife, distinguished as the favourite of Elkanah, and though, as youngest, helped after Peninnah, and her sons and daughters, yet had a larger share, or, as it is mentioned in the margin, a double portion. This is our translation; but the words מנה אחת אפים literally signify—"a piece, part, or portion of the roasted meat"—some more choice part, we may suppose, which he had reserved for her. Elkanah's love, and preference of Hannah in his affections, would hardly have suffered him to place her after Peninnah, if Hannah had not been the youngest and after-taken wife; any more than Joseph's affection to Benjamin would have suffered him to have placed him below the rest of his brethren, had it not been against all rule to have done otherwise.
But if we look more deeply into this scripture, we may gather from Hannah's song, chap. ii. 1–10, a certain proof that Hannah was the second wife. The song itself is evidently prophetical, it treats upon the same subject as that of the Virgin Mary, which is recorded Luke i. 46–54; and these two wives of Elkanah, are spoken of as typical of what should come to pass in the latter days, when the Jews, the elder professing people of God, and who brought forth professing children, should become barren, and the poor barren Gentiles become fruitful. Hannah says, chap. ii. 5. The barren hath borne seven, and she that hath many children is waxed feeble. A clear prophecy of the rejection of the Jews, and the calling of the Gentiles, the former typified by Peninnah, and the latter by Hannah. So Is. liv. 1.—alluding to the same interesting and wonderful events—says, Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child; for more are the children of the desolate, than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord. In this view of the matter, Hannah must certainly be the second wife, as the Gentiles were called subsequently to the Jews, or else the whole similitude of this prophetical transaction, as to the fulfilment of it, in the rejection of the Jews, and calling of the Gentiles, is destroyed at once.
For all these reasons, it is surely manifest, that Peninnah, who was a figure of the Jews, was the first-taken wife, and that Hannah, who was a figure of the Gentile church, was the second in point of time. Nor is it likely that Elkanah, having a wife whom he liked better, should take another he liked worse.—The contrary is very probable.
That Hannah should delay her anxious requests for a child, till after a second wife had been taken by her husband, and till by this second he had sons and daughters grown up, is inconceivable; but that Peninnah, the first wife, who had left off breeding (see chap. ii. 5, latter part)—full of rage, and jealousy, and indignation, from observing Elkanah's partiality to an after-taken wife—should become her bitter adversary—say every thing to vex her, with bitter taunts upon the subject of her barrenness (which was reckoned a matter of disgrace among the Jewish women) and thus afflict and grieve her, 'till, in the sorrow, grief, and anguish of her spirit, she prayed earnestly to have her reproach taken away (see Gen xxx. 23.) is surely the plain, obvious, natural sense of the history. Something like this may be supposed to have happened between Leah and Rachel, Gen. xxx. 15, 22, 23.
But let us suppose, for argument's sake, what, for the reasons above mentioned, can never be allowed, that Hannah was the elder wife, still the history affords a very conclusive proof that polygamy is no transgression of any law of God, therefore no sin. Elkanah was a Levite, who came up to worship and sacrifice to the Lord, probably peace-offerings, which were wont to accompany others at the great festivals, all of which—except the fat, which was burnt upon the altar, and the breast and right shoulder, which belonged to the priests—belonged to him that offered them; with the rest the sacrificer made a feast for himself, his family, and friends, giving to every one a portion of the sacrifice.—But no one could offer, or feast upon the sacrifices, unless he was clean, on pain of being cut off from his people. Lev. vii. 20, 21. Hence we hear Saul accounting for David's absence from the feast, on the offerings at the new moon. 1 Sam. xx. 26. The touch of any thing that was unclean, or having some bodily disorder upon him, such as the leprosy, and the like, rendered a man unclean, so that he could neither offer, or feast upon the offerings. But what must have become of that man, whose moral uncleanness must have been what Elkanah's was, if he could be deemed to live in adultery? for that he certainly did, if polygamy was a sin against the seventh commandment. Could he have come up, year after year, to worship and to sacrifice to Jehovah, under such a state of moral defilement and uncleanness? Could he have found blessing and acceptance, while in the sink of moral filth and pollution? Hophni and Phineas, Eli's two sons, were both cut off in one day, for the abuse of the offerings of God, and for their uncleanness, 1 Sam. ii. 17, 22, 34; but Elkanah remains in his, accepted of God, and happy in being blessed with a son (and such a son as Samuel) by miracle. Again, what was Peninnah? a partaker, a partner, in Elkanah's iniquity, if their marriage was unlawful.—What were the sons and daughters who were born of Peninnah, under a forbidden marriage? Bastards. Therefore Peninnah's eating of the sacrifices, as well as her children's, were absolutely forbidden things. Even the hire of an whore was forbidden to be brought into the house of the Lord. Deut. xxiii. 18. how much more the person of an adulteress? and as for a bastard, or one born of her who was with child by whoredom, he was not even to enter into the congregation of the Lord, even to his tenth generation. Deut. xxiii. 2. How then could Elkanah himself—how could Peninnah (supposing her the second wife)—how could the children born of these parents, go to the house of the Lord in Shilo—feast upon the sacrifices, and return in peace, with God's blessing and acceptance, unless the second marriage was as lawful in God's sight as the first, and no more than that, an offence against God's law? In whatever view we take this chapter, it proves, that neither the words of the primary institution, nor those of any subsequent commandment, prohibited polygamy; for if they had, these things respecting Elkanah, Peninnah, and their children, could not have been as they were, consistently with the scripture-character of that holy God, who is of purer eyes than to behold evil, or to look on iniquity. Hab. i. 13.
Here I might once more mention the case of Solomon, the son of David by Bathsheba, whom David, having other wives before, took to wife after the decease of Uriah. The law, which positively excluded bastards, or those born out of lawful wedlock, from the congregation of the Lord, even unto the tenth generation, (Deut. xxiii. 2.) is wholly inconsistent with Solomon's being employed to build God's temple—being the mouth of the people to God in prayer—and offering sacrifices in the temple at its dedication—unless David's marriage with Bathsheba was a lawful marriage—Solomon the lawful issue of that marriage—consequently polygamy no sin, either against the primary institution of marriage, or against the seventh commandment.—But so far from Solomon's being under any legal disqualification from the law above-mentioned—he is appointed by God himself to build the temple, 1 Kings viii. 19. His prayer is heard—and the house is hallowed, chap. ix. 3. and filled with such glory, that the priests could not stand to minister, chap. viii. 11. Solomon, therefore, as well as Samuel, stand as a demonstrable proof, that a child born under the circumstance of polygamy is no bastard—God Himself being the judge, whose judgment is according to truth.
A more striking instance of God's thoughts, on the total difference between polygamy and adultery, does not meet us any where, in any part of the sacred history, than in the account which is given us of David and Bathsheba, and their issue.
When David took Bathsheba, she was another's wife—the child which he begat upon her in that situation was begotten in adultery—and the thing which David had done displeased the Lord, 2 Sam. xi. 27. And what was the consequence? We are told, 2 Sam. xii. 1. The Lord sent Nathan (the prophet) unto David. Nathan opened his commission with a most beautiful parable, descriptive of David's crime; this parable the prophet applies to the conviction of the delinquent, sets it home upon his conscience, brings him to repentance, and the poor penitent finds mercy—his life is spared, ver. 13. Yet God will vindicate the honour of His moral government, and that in the most awful manner—the murder of Uriah is to be visited upon David and his house—The sword shall never depart from thine house, ver. 10. The adultery with Bathsheba was to be retaliated in the most aggravated manner—Because thou hast despised Me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife—Thus saith the Lord, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house—and I will take thy wives and give them unto thy neighbour before thine eyes—and he shall lie with thy wives in sight of this sun—for thou didst it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun. All this was shortly fulfilled in the rebellion and incest of Absalom, chap. xvi. 21, 22. And this was done in a way of judgment on David, for taking and defiling the wife of Uriah, and was included in the curses threatened, Deut. xxviii. 30. to the despisers of God's laws.
As to the issue of David's adulterous commerce with Bathsheba, it is written—2 Sam. xii. 15.—The Lord struck the child which Uriah bare unto David, and it was very sick. What a dreadful scourge this was to David, who could not but read his crime in his punishment, the following verses declare; wherein we find David almost frantic with grief: however the child's sickness was unto death, for, ver. 18, on the seventh day the child died.
Now let us take a view of David's act of polygamy, when, after Uriah's death, he added Bathsheba to his other wives, ver. 24, 25. And David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in unto her, and lay with her, and he bare a son, and he called his name (שלמה) Selomoh (that maketh peace and reconciliation or recompence) and the Lord loved him. Again, we find Nathan, who had been sent on the former occasion, sent also on this, but with a very different message.—And He (the Lord) sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet, and He called his name Jedidiah (Dilectus Domini—beloved of the Lord) because of the Lord—i. e. because of the favour God had towards him, ver. 24. Comp. 1 Chron. xxviii. 5, 6.
Let any read onward through the whole history of Solomon—let them consider the instances of God's peculiar favour towards him already mentioned, and the many others, that are to be found in the account we have of him—let them compare God's dealings with the unhappy offspring of David's adultery, and this happy issue of his polygamy—and if the allowance and approbation of the latter, doth not as clearly appear, as the condemnation and punishment of the former, surely all distinction and difference must be at an end, and the scripture itself lose the force of it's own evidence.
References:
Uncharted Knowledge
Wisdom From Previous Realities
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