Genesis 29-30 – How Many Wives Make for a Successful Marriage?

While reading through the Bible, you will be surprised as some of the things that happened early on. In the Old Testament, there are several mentions of godly people who chose to marry multiple women for a variety of reasons. While already married to Sarah, Abraham was convinced to have a child with his wife's maidservant, Hagar. Samuel's father had multiple wives who didn't get along well. When pursued by Saul, David left his wife and hid in the wilderness. During that time, he married several other women and later added concubines to his family. Solomon famously had 700 wives and 300 concubines. While these men were known for their good relationships with the Lord, their choices weren't very wise.

From the beginning, God made one man and one woman for the first marriage (Gen. 2:18-25). This was His statement that monogamy (one man married to one woman) was his perfect design for marriage. While the Bible does not explicitly prohibit multiple wives, it does show how poorly things work out when a man has multiple wives. In our passage today, we will see what happened when Jacob married multiple women. Did things go well or did it turn out to be a bad idea? We shall see.