The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints published a Gospel Topics essay on “Plural Marriage” which states:
Latter-day Saints do not understand all of God’s purposes in instituting, through His prophets, the practice of plural marriage. The Book of Mormon identifies one reason for God to command it: to increase the number of children born in the gospel covenant in order to “raise up seed unto [the Lord].”
https://web.archive.org/web/20241222192624/https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/plural-marriage-in-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints?lang=eng
This essay cites Jacob 2:30, which reads:
For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.
The conventional interpretation of this verse suggests that if God desires to “raise up seed,” He will command men to take multiple wives in order to increase the number of children born in the gospel covenant.
If this interpretation were correct, then God’s condemnation of the Nephites’ practice of taking many wives and concubines would serve as evidence that the Nephites were not commanded to “raise up seed” at this time.
However, this interpretation is flawed.
This is because the Nephites were indeed commanded to raise up seed, but the Lord explicitly instructed them to do so monogamously.
This command is clearly stated in 1 Nephi 7:1-2:
…the Lord spake unto him [Lehi] again, saying that it was not meet for him… to take his family into the wilderness alone; but that his sons should take daughters to wife, that they might raise up seed unto the Lord in the land of promise. And it came to pass that the Lord commanded him that I, Nephi, and my brethren, should again return unto the land of Jerusalem, and bring down Ishmael and his family into the wilderness.
Not only was raising up seed commanded, but Jacob later confirms that the Lord required this to be done with one wife only:
“…for [the Lamanites] have not forgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our father—that they should have save it were one wife, and concubines they should have none…”
Jacob 3:5
Jacob further declares that this commandment—monogamy—was directly from God:
“For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none…” (Jacob 2:27)
This also demonstrates that when the Lord commands his people to raise up seed, it can be accomplished monogamously, without the need for men to take additional wives or concubines.
Ironically, to raise up seed, the Lord commanded Lehi and his family to leave a land where the widespread practice of having many wives and concubines made it impossible to fulfill this purpose because he classifies the practice as “wickedness and abominations.”
“Thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem… that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins (seed) of Joseph.”
Jacob 2:25
God explained that the practice of men taking many wives and concubines caused sorrow and mourning among His daughters. This condemnation applied not only in the land of Jerusalem but throughout all the lands of His people:
“For behold, I, the Lord, have seen the sorrow, and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people in the land of Jerusalem, yea, and in all the lands of my people, because of the wickedness and abominations of their husbands.”
Jacob 2:31-32
Thus, while the Nephites were indeed commanded to “raise up seed,” they were required to do so within the bounds of monogamous marriage.
The practice of taking many wives and concubines, prevalent in Jerusalem and in all other lands, was explicitly condemned as “wickedness and abominations.”
This clearly demonstrates why the conventional interpretation of Jacob 2:30 is flawed: it incorrectly assumes that the Nephites were not commanded to raise up seed and mistakenly equates “raise up seed” with taking many wives and concubines—an approach that, ironically, is counterproductive to raising up a righteous seed.
If you would like a much deeper dive into this subject with a lot more evidence and references, please see my essay, “A proposed reinterpretation of Jacob 2:30.”
2 Comments
Totally agree! Maybe you have mentioned this before, but plural wives on average had fewer children than monogamous ones. The math is pretty simple and does not support the “raise up seed” argument. I really enjoy your thoughts.
I did point that out on the one post where I propose another interpretation to Jacob 2:30 that is more doctrinally correct. I agree on one level about the math, but I’d be careful about trying to “do the math” on this topic.
People often try to project what they think heaven will be like and come up with all this reasoning that has no evidence such as this idea that there will be more women in heaven than men. Men get demonized and told that we are all naturally more evil than women and I don’t believe that at all. Men and women do different kinds of evil.
We have no idea how God will solve some of these things in heaven. Abram and Sarai had no idea how God would bless them with seed in their old age so they created their own solution by using a surrogate instead of simply trusting that God would fulfill his promises.
Likewise, it’s foolish for us to see what we think is a problem such as providing a spouse for every person and we invent ideas like there must be polygamy for this to work.
But I guarantee that God has something planned and that it’s likely nothing that we are thinking.
Just because we don’t have all the answers, doesn’t mean there aren’t any and that God hasn’t thought all of this through. So when people get caught up in wondering about all the hows of what will happen when a man who has married another woman after the death of the first goes to heaven and such. Who knows, maybe God can clone spirits or maybe there’s some kind of multiverse where multiple realities are possible in the eternities, or some other really amazing plan that will blow our minds.
But we know there won’t be abominations in heaven. There won’t be adultery, idol worship, bestiality, abuse, cannibalism, slavery, etc. so why would there be the wickedness and abominations of having many wives and concubines?