I think the situation with someone like Solomon was that a wife had a certain rank - the wives were often princesses of other countries, married to seal alliances. OK, 1000 might be a bit excessive, but in answer to Gail's question about whether she'd want to be one... it's possible that a concubine could be a woman who was not royal and qualified for an arranged marriage for political purposes, but was someone the man really loved for herself. Just a scenario...

...and I think we tend, in our culture, to be overly obsessed with the sexual aspects of this situation, and not think about the other implications. Same with polygamy... perhaps men with more wives do have more sex, but probably not dramatically more, just different. They also have more responsibilities and more posibilities for conflict, and more children to parent and...

I believe monogamy is God's ideal for us but that, for example, being a concubine is superior to being a prostitute, which may have been the alternative for many women. If we think of Solomon's 300 wives and 700 concubines, not as a massive harem from which he was free to select for his pleasure, but as a massive group of women who were fed and protected and cared for, some of whom may not have had other options...

What are the odds that some zealous scribe slipped in a zero or two to make it look more astounding? Some of the numbers stated in the dedication of the temple appear to be logistically impossible. The number of animals slaughtered would seem to exceed any credible possibility

mel

That´s very unlikely.
¨Nothing was left to the decision of the scribes, neither the length of lines and columns, nor the color of the ink to be used. The words of each book were counted, and its middle word established, to provide means for checking the accuracy of new copies. At the end of each book a statement was attached giving the number of words the book contained and also telling which was the middle word, besides some other statistical information.¨ (SDA Bibel Commentary, VI, p.35)

Well the original author used round figures which might indicate some guesswork there! (or is it a translation problem?)

mel

As to the number of Solomons's wives and concubines, I have no comment on the accuracy of the numbers in the Biblical record. My gut response is it is obscene!! Just my female opinion.

I have been reading your comments with interest, and finally decided to chime in with some information re: concubines that I had read recently in a book written by a woman who was raised in the palace of the king of Morocco. She had first hand knowlege of their living situations as she was part of the harem.

She was first btought to the palace as a serrogate sister for the kings young daughter, roughly her age, 5, I believe. She lived, slept, ate, and went to shcool with this girl. I don't recall the exact events that brought her inside of the palace, but she was eventually brought into the harem and lived with all the women. These were young girls who dreamed of a life of luxury, and found it in the palace. The king chose the girls via something like beauty contests.

He had an official wife. She had a separate apartment where she lived and more access to the king than the others. The king did have relations with whoever he wished, whoever flirted with him the most on certain occassions, or whatever. She wrote of how all the harem ladies and the king lounged in the pools naked and cavorted down the halls naked to and from the pool. She wrote how at first when she was young it didn't bother her, but as she started to mature, she was mortified to be seen naked. She tried leaving her panties on on one occassion, the king became very angry and ripped them off of her.

The concubines also had children, and they had jealousies among themselves as to which child the king would favor above the others. But, of couse when the wife had sons, they would be the heirs and favored ones.

The concubines were very much sheltered from the outside world. It was like they were prisoners, actually. They were not allowed to go outside of the palace walls, period. There were certain times that outings were arranged for them, then they were like school girls in their excitement to go out. But, they were all in a group and closely supervised. They were not allowed contact with their families on the outside, if I remember correctly.

The young girls' story went on to describe how she begged to go back to live with her family, the times she tried to call her mother, sometimes successfully and most of the time not. Her father was part of the military, and opposed the king on some issues, was part of an uncuccessful assination plot. In the end, the father was killed by the government, and the girl and her whole family were placed under house arrenst. The rest of her story involved the hellish years of this imprisionment, poverty, near starvation, and isolation from their family, and the world. It is a heart wrenching story how their lives were, indeed, "stolen" as they endured this imprisonment for 20 years.

So, from this story, I would conclude that being part of a harem is really not all it might seem to someone on the outside. There was luxury, to be sure, fine clothing and housing, liasons with the king, but no legal standing. The children that they bore were not theirs legally, and they were cut off from the outside world and families. Doesn't sound like such a good deal to me........a kept prostitue.

But, as mentioned, perhaps a "better" life than being a street prostitute in that their food, clothing, and shelter were provided. They did have the protection of the palace as long as they didn't make waves, if they did, the king was free to "dispose" of them as he saw fit. Or, as this unfortunate lady found out, if one of the parents came into disfavor with the palace, the whole family could be disposed of in the most cruel way.

So, that is my take on the modern version of concubines from Morocco. Not a particularily pretty picture. The name of the book is "Stolen Lives".

Morning Glory

Alden Thompson in his book "Inspiration" discusses the use of numbers in the Old Testament. Has to do with multiple meanings for certain Hebrew words. Probably we should not assume too much about the accuracy of some of the large numbers in those days.

mel

Here is a twist-

Do you think that by just participating in multiple marriages contributed to Solomon's spiritual downfall? I just read the EGW account in Prophets and Kings and I got the feeling that she was implying that not only the wives themselves were an influence but just the idea of taking on so many helped him on the way to spiritual infidelity.

Possibly! Same might be true of David but have you ever wondered why Bathsheba was exposing herself when she knew who lived next door?

mel

I don't know if she was exposing herself intentionally. In those days, a roof was used as another room and bathing on it could have been as private as they could get at that time. Although David's building was high enough that he had a view, I'm not sure that a lot of other people's buildings were.

On the other hand she could have had her eye on the first lady position in the palace.

mel