Jacob 2:23-35
2:23-24 - I think it's very interesting that the Lord says "they understand not the scriptures, for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son." This is a similar argument made by those who say "but Jesus drank wine in the Bible," or "Jesus had long hair so I don't have to cut mine." It's finding ways to do what you want, that is contrary to the teachings of modern day prophets, but still feel justified by the scriptures. I think it's way more common than we would imagine, because everyone just wants to do what we want to do all the time. But like the Lord says, if they understood the scriptures, they would know that polygamy is only authorized the the Lord commands it. Polygamy has been an interesting issue for me, very few people in the church understand it, I feel that it's considered a "dark time" of church history, kind of a hushed topic. But having really pondered it, read the scriptures and tried to educate myself as to why, how, when, etc. And this is what I believe happened in the early church, again this is only my personal opinion. I believe that the Lord commanded the use of polygamy so that he could have generations of saints raised by righteous parents to believe in him and serve him. As far as I can tell, a large amount of not only secondary church leadership but a large portion of the base of church membership is the result of polygamy. I know that my family comes from polygamy on both my parents' lines, and I know that many who have been generational LDS have the same heritage. Once the mission was complete, the Lord discontinued it's use. The Lord is the ultimate champion for women and there's almost nothing as heartbreaking than being just one more wife and being in a loveless marriage. How righteous and amazing these women must have been who were the 34th, 35th, etc. wife. To be married, and know you're not the only one, and to bear children, and to raise them to love the God that told you to live this way. That takes dedication, and the Lord knows that every woman wants to be special in her husband's eyes, she wants to be the princess, she wants to be cherished, the women who were called to be the plural wives of these men, must have been extra special, extra valiant, and absolutely stalwartly amazing. Another interesting idea brought here is the idea that David and Solomon's plural marriages were "abominable before me, saith the Lord." But as we talked about earlier, at least David was commanded to take on multiple wives, but where the problem was is in his taking wives that he was not commanded to take. He essentially took the choice out of the Lord's hands and started making it his own, and this because Bathsheba was attractive to him. So he wasn't interested in Bathsheba as a righteous woman whom the Lord had commanded him to raise children with, he objectified her, he desired her physically, which is not what polygamy is about. Polygamy is not about men just having multiple "legal" sex partners, it's about family and God and religion, and I believe that the Lord knows that it can break a woman's heart to not be loved by her husband, or not given his attention, and he's not interested in any of his daughters having hurt feelings because their husbands are not doing the right thing. David's sin lay in the objectifying of women, he stopped seeing them as daughters of God and started seeing them as sex objects, and it seems like this is the sin the Nephite's came into. They didn't desire "wives and concubines" because of Christ like love for them and the desire to raise righteous seed up unto the Lord, they desired "wives and concubines" so that they could have multiple sex partners and call it sanctioned by the Lord.
2:25-27 - Here Jacob sets out in no uncertain terms that "there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none." The Lord says that he took them out of Jerusalem and into the promised land "that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph." I don't know if this verse has any significance here, but one thought that I had was that King David was from the tribe of Judah, and historically the man Judah had a problem with fidelity, at least one recorded time visiting a "prostitute" who turns out to be his daughter in law, but that's another story, and my guess is that it wasn't his first time committing adultery either. But here the Lord references the Nephite's heritage through Joseph, who historically, Joseph the man ran from immorality and obtained the birthright. I wonder if by bringing up their ancestry through Joseph if the Lord is trying to remind them of the legacy that he left for them and as part of the birthright people, they are expected to be very diligent in keeping the commandments. So I don't know if there's any connection there, but it was interesting to me anyway.
2:28-30 - This has always been an interesting concept for me that "the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women." After truly coming to know the nature of God, his attitude towards women, and really taking into my heart the idea that I personally am special to him, as a daughter, I can see more of what that statement means. Physical contact with another human being is not just that, it is so much more, regardless, there are feelings involved, not just feelings toward the other person but feelings about the self. In the IM Elder Richard G. Scott is quoted as teaching "intimate acts are forbidden by the Lord outside of the enduring commitment of marriage...they are against His will. They cause serious emotional and spiritual harm. Even though participants do not realize that is happening now, they will later." To me, this implies that "intimate acts" are clearly not only physical, but deeply emotional and spiritual as well, but negatively when done outside of marriage and positively when done within the bonds of marriage. The Lord desires all to come unto Him, and He desires all to be happy in their lives and within their marriages. He knows that a strong, healthy sex life can strengthen a marriage in a unique way, and he desires us to have that strong marriage. One the other hand, outside of marriage "sexual immorality creates a barrier to the influence of the Holy Spirit... it engenders selfishness and can produce aggressive acts such as brutality, abortion, sexual abuse, and violent crime." And looking at it from a broader perspective, it's easy to see how immorality can breed objectification, disrespect, and ultimately these terrible things that Elder Scott talks about. It's interesting because I just read an article today about how internet porn is single handedly destroying the sexual values of young boys and distorting their views of women to simply physical objects. It was sick, and that's saying something because I'm not a prude, believe it or not. Chastity ensures that woman are valued for who they are, true daughters of God, respected, and committed to, it helps strengthen their male counterparts because being a boy can be difficult, their hormones are a little bit different than ours. Looking at chastity within polygamy, it makes total sense that the Lord would only call worthy righteous men and women to be participants. If the husband desires another wife, based how he feels about her physically, he is objectifying her, and the Lord detests that. Thus why David sinned with Bathsheba and not other wives, he objectified her, which is demonstrated by his efforts to try to get Uriah to go in unto his wife, so that he wouldn't have to claim to be the father of her baby, even though he was the father. He didn't want the consequences of his actions, he only wanted the gratification, and that was the sin. So it would make sense that in the early church polygamy was sanctioned by the Lord in the same fashion as it was in the days of old, that it was about heritage and family, not in anyway about lust and gratification.
2:31-35 - Here is where the Lord really takes it home, defending "the fair daughters of this people." He makes it clear that he has "seen the sorrow, and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people... because of the wickedness and abominations of their husbands." Even today, I have heard from the church leadership things like "God will make you account for every tear you cause your wife to shed" and stuff like that. God TRULY values women, values their feelings. This is a scathing denouncing of their desires for immorality. The IM teaches "many Nephite husbands had broken the hearts of their wives and lost the confidence of their children. Family can be destroyed when the law of chastity is broken." I can attest that there is almost no greater pain than that of enduring a spouse's infidelity. And it's not just the act of them being with someone else that is painful, it is the rejection, it's the millions of questions "what did I do wrong? What if I was prettier, what if I was thinner, what if I was more adventurous, etc?" Then there's the jealously of the other partner, and the constant comparisons to them "why are they so much better than me?" It's the lost time and energy that was taken away from your family and given to this other person, it's the fact that they would rather be with the other person instead of you. I have known so many people who have experienced it and they say that it was honestly the hardest thing that they have ever lived through. Elder Neal A. Maxwell teaches "unchastity and infidelity bring serious consequences such as the rippling, even haunting effects of illegitimacy and fatherlessness, along with disease and the shredding of families." For any spouse that has been betrayed, for any child that has been abandoned, the Lord has heard the sobbing of your hearts and even though it may not seem like it, your righteousness in the face of this truly terrible trial will be bring blessings upon your heads 100 fold.
2:25-27 - Here Jacob sets out in no uncertain terms that "there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none." The Lord says that he took them out of Jerusalem and into the promised land "that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph." I don't know if this verse has any significance here, but one thought that I had was that King David was from the tribe of Judah, and historically the man Judah had a problem with fidelity, at least one recorded time visiting a "prostitute" who turns out to be his daughter in law, but that's another story, and my guess is that it wasn't his first time committing adultery either. But here the Lord references the Nephite's heritage through Joseph, who historically, Joseph the man ran from immorality and obtained the birthright. I wonder if by bringing up their ancestry through Joseph if the Lord is trying to remind them of the legacy that he left for them and as part of the birthright people, they are expected to be very diligent in keeping the commandments. So I don't know if there's any connection there, but it was interesting to me anyway.
2:28-30 - This has always been an interesting concept for me that "the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women." After truly coming to know the nature of God, his attitude towards women, and really taking into my heart the idea that I personally am special to him, as a daughter, I can see more of what that statement means. Physical contact with another human being is not just that, it is so much more, regardless, there are feelings involved, not just feelings toward the other person but feelings about the self. In the IM Elder Richard G. Scott is quoted as teaching "intimate acts are forbidden by the Lord outside of the enduring commitment of marriage...they are against His will. They cause serious emotional and spiritual harm. Even though participants do not realize that is happening now, they will later." To me, this implies that "intimate acts" are clearly not only physical, but deeply emotional and spiritual as well, but negatively when done outside of marriage and positively when done within the bonds of marriage. The Lord desires all to come unto Him, and He desires all to be happy in their lives and within their marriages. He knows that a strong, healthy sex life can strengthen a marriage in a unique way, and he desires us to have that strong marriage. One the other hand, outside of marriage "sexual immorality creates a barrier to the influence of the Holy Spirit... it engenders selfishness and can produce aggressive acts such as brutality, abortion, sexual abuse, and violent crime." And looking at it from a broader perspective, it's easy to see how immorality can breed objectification, disrespect, and ultimately these terrible things that Elder Scott talks about. It's interesting because I just read an article today about how internet porn is single handedly destroying the sexual values of young boys and distorting their views of women to simply physical objects. It was sick, and that's saying something because I'm not a prude, believe it or not. Chastity ensures that woman are valued for who they are, true daughters of God, respected, and committed to, it helps strengthen their male counterparts because being a boy can be difficult, their hormones are a little bit different than ours. Looking at chastity within polygamy, it makes total sense that the Lord would only call worthy righteous men and women to be participants. If the husband desires another wife, based how he feels about her physically, he is objectifying her, and the Lord detests that. Thus why David sinned with Bathsheba and not other wives, he objectified her, which is demonstrated by his efforts to try to get Uriah to go in unto his wife, so that he wouldn't have to claim to be the father of her baby, even though he was the father. He didn't want the consequences of his actions, he only wanted the gratification, and that was the sin. So it would make sense that in the early church polygamy was sanctioned by the Lord in the same fashion as it was in the days of old, that it was about heritage and family, not in anyway about lust and gratification.
2:31-35 - Here is where the Lord really takes it home, defending "the fair daughters of this people." He makes it clear that he has "seen the sorrow, and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people... because of the wickedness and abominations of their husbands." Even today, I have heard from the church leadership things like "God will make you account for every tear you cause your wife to shed" and stuff like that. God TRULY values women, values their feelings. This is a scathing denouncing of their desires for immorality. The IM teaches "many Nephite husbands had broken the hearts of their wives and lost the confidence of their children. Family can be destroyed when the law of chastity is broken." I can attest that there is almost no greater pain than that of enduring a spouse's infidelity. And it's not just the act of them being with someone else that is painful, it is the rejection, it's the millions of questions "what did I do wrong? What if I was prettier, what if I was thinner, what if I was more adventurous, etc?" Then there's the jealously of the other partner, and the constant comparisons to them "why are they so much better than me?" It's the lost time and energy that was taken away from your family and given to this other person, it's the fact that they would rather be with the other person instead of you. I have known so many people who have experienced it and they say that it was honestly the hardest thing that they have ever lived through. Elder Neal A. Maxwell teaches "unchastity and infidelity bring serious consequences such as the rippling, even haunting effects of illegitimacy and fatherlessness, along with disease and the shredding of families." For any spouse that has been betrayed, for any child that has been abandoned, the Lord has heard the sobbing of your hearts and even though it may not seem like it, your righteousness in the face of this truly terrible trial will be bring blessings upon your heads 100 fold.
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