David has taken additional wives during the time he's lived in Hebron. We've already been told that his first wife, Michal, was given to another man after Saul murderously turned against David and caused him to live in exile. Sometime after that he married a woman named Ahinoam from Jezreel, then later he also married Abigail the widow of Nabal. By the time we arrive at Chapter 3 he has four additional wives: Maakah, Haggith, Abital, and Eglah.
Why did David marry so many women? Has he become somewhat worldly in his thinking? It was common among the heathen nations for kings and other wealthy men to take many wives. Sometimes this was done to forge political alliances. In some cases it was done to ostentatiously display enormous wealth. It was also done as a means of securing the dynasty; the mortality rate was high in infants and small children and a king or wealthy man would have numerous children to make certain at least one male heir survived to adulthood.
But David didn't have to worry that the Lord would leave him without a son to inherit the throne after him, so why did he take all these wives? He could not have been ignorant of the Lord's very specific command regarding kings: "He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray." (Deuteronomy 17:17a) A king (or any man) with many wives will not have as much time for the Lord as a man with only one wife. A king of David's time would have some foreign wives and that means these women are in a position to tempt their husbands into idolatry. A king with many wives and many children will not have peace in the home, (David will be no exception), and conflicts in the home will take some of his attention away from the Lord. A man cannot have multiple wives and multiple families without causing a great deal of rivalry, jealousy, and bitterness among his family members. This is especially true when there is much power and money at stake. I think David did become somewhat worldly in his thinking as he gained power and money, for although he is not yet king over all Israel, he's come a long way from being the young man who once fled for his life with nothing but the clothes on his back. As he's accumulated power and wealth, he's accumulated many wives like most other powerful and wealthy men of his day. And as human beings have a tendency to do, he probably justified his mode of living by saying to himself, "Everybody else is doing it. No other man in my position from any other nation has only one wife. It wouldn't even look good if I didn't have multiple wives; kings of other nations would assume I'm not a good provider and that I'm not virile and manly. This would make them think I'm weak and that they can attack my nation."
Here is a list of David's six first sons: "Sons were born to David in Hebron: His firstborn was Amnon the son of Ahinoam of Jezreel; his second, Kileab the son of Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel; the third, Absalom the son of Maakah daughter of Talmai king of Geshur; the fourth, Adonijah the son of Haggith; the fifth, Shephatiah the son of Abital; and the sixth, Ithream the son of David's wife Eglah. These were born to David in Hebron." (2 Samuel 3:2-5)
David is not living within the will of God by taking all these wives, for he is operating in direct opposition to what the Lord said about kings and wives. We don't find the Lord speaking out against David's actions in our text but that doesn't mean David won't face any consequences from disobeying the Lord. He is not going to "get away with" doing something the Lord said not to do. These many sons by many different wives are going to cause him heartbreak and hardship. There will be rivalries between the households and rivalries against David himself. Amnon will attack and rape his half-sister Tamar, and when David does nothing to discipline Amnon for his violent and unlawful deed, Amnon's half-brother Absalom will murder him to avenge his sister's honor. Absalom will be so resentful of David's failure to act that he will begin campaigning against his father in an effort to usurp the throne. (Evidently the son born between Amnon and Absalom, Kileab, died or was unfit either mentally or physically to rule the nation. This meant Absalom was the heir-apparent to the throne but he wanted to be king in place of his father, not to inherit the throne after his father's natural death.) Absalom will lose his life in a freak accident caused by his vanity over his long and luxuriant hair. Absalom's death places Adonijah next in line for the throne but he too will rebel against his father. He will not be successful in gaining the throne and will be put to death by the king the Lord chooses to succeed David: the young Solomon, who must have appeared to David's other sons as an unlikely contender. Nothing is ever told to us about the lives of his sons Shephatiah or Ithream so they either died young or were unfit to be considered for the crown.
There is a reason why the Bible solemnly warns us, "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." (Galatians 6:7) We can't break the Lord's rules and get away with it. Either He will discipline us Himself or else He will allow the natural consequences of our poor choices to be our discipline. He might even have to do both, depending on how far our hearts have gotten away from Him. But just as it's impossible to plant corn and have beans sprout up instead, it's impossible to sow seeds of disobedience and reap blessings. Bad decisions naturally have unpleasant consequences. David didn't need six wives---and he will take more than these six as time goes on! He will even seduce another man's wife and end up ordering his army general, Joab, to make sure the man dies in battle. It probably seemed harmless to David when he first began accumulating wives, when he told himself it was fine because all other political leaders did such things, but disobedience is never harmless. We cause harm to ourselves and we cause harm to those around us, especially since disobedience has a tendency to grow as time goes on. Our hearts can grow harder as we deliberately disobey the Lord time after time until we find ourselves committing a sin we never imagined ourselves committing. That's what will happen to David, but the seeds that led to such a sin are planted a number of years before, right here where we find him taking multiple wives and siring children by all of them.
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