How many wives did King David have?
The Bible never sets down a single total for David's wives. It names some, counts sons by their mothers, and then adds a line about further wives and concubines taken later — which leaves the reader adding names and admitting the list is open at the end.
The wives Scripture names
The counting starts before David was ever king. One writer traces the first three from David's years of danger and wandering:
George C. WillisPerhaps the first sign that something was wrong in David's family life was when he began to multiply wives. You will remember that he bought his first wife, Michal, Saul's daughter, with the lives of two hundred of the king's enemies. But in 1 Samuel 25 we find that David took as wives both Abigail (formerly wife of Nabal the Carmelite, of the family of Caleb) and Ahinoam the Jezreelite.
At Hebron the list is fixed by the birth record, where each son is tied to a different mother:
Leslie M. GrantWe are told now of David's having six sons, each by a different wife (vv. 2-5). It was never God's intention that a man should have more than one wife. At the beginning He had said, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife" — not "his wives." Yet under law God bore with bigamy and polygamy because of the hardness of men's hearts.
Bathsheba as the eighth
Michal, Ahinoam and Abigail, together with the Hebron mothers, bring the named total to seven. The marriage that follows David's worst act adds one more:
Leslie M. GrantWhen the days of mourning were over, David sent for her and took her as his eighth wife, and she bore a son. But we are assured that what David had done was evil in the sight of the Lord. This could not go unpunished.
Beyond the names
After that the record stops naming mothers, so no exact figure can be reached. Note where this comes in the story — right at the peak of David's success:
Morrish Bible DictionaryAll was now changed for David; but, sadly, the first thing recorded after he took possession of Zion is "And David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem, after he came from Hebron." 2 Samuel 5:13.
The children of these later marriages are listed, but the wives themselves are not:
Numerical Bible NotesThere are still more marriages contracted by David, and sons and daughters born to him in Jerusalem. Eleven are named, but without any mention of their mothers.
A rule written for kings
The number matters because a king of Israel had been given a specific instruction on this exact point, and David had the books of the law available to him:
H. L. RossierHad he asked the Lord before doing so, what would the Lord have replied? Read my Word! ... Does it not say in Deuteronomy 17:17 concerning the king: "He shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away"? He might have all sorts of good reasons by human reckoning for doing as he did — to secure a royal line, and so on — but this was not according to God. To be convinced of this we need only trace the descendants of his wives. Had David had only godly Abigail as his companion, would he have seen an Amnon bring shame and dishonour on his house, an Absalom rebel against his own father, or an Adonijah try to seize the kingdom?
Marriages outside Israel
One of the Hebron marriages crossed a further line, since Absalom's mother was a foreign princess:
George C. WillisNot only did David multiply wives, but in order to find wives of royal birth he turned to the heathen nations around him. This was also in direct disobedience and defiance of God's repeated command that they were not to take wives from the nations around them.
The next generation
The warning attached to the command was about the heart, and the clearest proof of it appears in David's own son:
Numerical Bible NotesWhere temptation was most likely to meet with opportunity, as in the case of a king in Israel such as David was, it was plainly said, "He shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away." The turning of the heart from God is here declared to be the result of such a practice; and the striking example of this we find in Solomon — but Solomon was himself the son of David and Bathsheba!
Summary
- Count: Michal, Abigail and Ahinoam come first; six wives are identified at Hebron by their sons; Bathsheba is described as the eighth.
- Uncounted: after Zion is taken, more wives and concubines follow — eleven sons are named in Jerusalem with no mothers listed, so no final number is given.
- Commanded: the king had been told not to acquire many wives, and the stated reason was the heart, not the arithmetic.
- Compounded: Absalom's mother came from a nation Israel had been forbidden to marry into, so one disobedience carried another inside it.
- Consequence: Amnon, Absalom and Adonijah grew out of that household, and Bathsheba's son Solomon repeated the very fault in the end.