Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site utcsrgv.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!dave
From: dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: BenDavid on Polygamy in Judaism
Message-ID: <379@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 31-Oct-84 21:06:37 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.379
Posted: Wed Oct 31 21:06:37 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 31-Oct-84 21:42:07 EST
References: <1045@akgua.UUCP> <274@edsel.UUCP> <1487@qubix.UUCP>
Reply-To: dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman)
Organization: The Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 18

In article <1487@qubix.UUCP> lab@qubix.UUCP (Larry Bickford) writes:
~| Forgive a Gentile for intruding, but did not Moses command in
~| Deuteronomy 17:17 that a king was to be monogamous?

Nope. The verse is translated (Soncino) as, "Neither shall he multiply
wives to himself..." (v'lo yarbeh lo nashim). Rashi, quoting the Talmud,
notes that the maximum number allowed was eighteen. Nowhere does the
pasuk indicate a specific maximum, and certainly not a specific maximum
of one. "Yarbeh" comes from the root "rov", which means "many"; that is,
one should not have "many" (>18) wives.

Note that the previous verse (17:16) commands that a king "not multiply
horses to himself", and the same word "yarbeh" is used. I have never heard
it suggested that this means a king may have only one horse.

Dave Sherman, Toronto
-- 
 { allegra cornell decvax ihnp4 linus utzoo }!utcsrgv!dave