Misinterpretations often wrongly portray Rehoboam's large harem as biblically endorsed polygamy or a blueprint for marital practices, ignoring Deuteronomy 17:17's warning against kings multiplying wives, which led to heart-turning idolatry as seen in Solomon. Others mistakenly view it as prescriptive for all believers rather than descriptive history, or overlook how such excess symbolized Judah's moral decline, promoting instead a cultural relativism that contradicts the New Testament's affirmation of one man-one woman marriage in passages like Ephesians 5.
II Chronicles 11:21
King James Version (1769)
21 And Rehoboam loved Maachah the daughter of Absalom above all his wives and his concubines: (for he took eighteen wives, and threescore concubines; and begat twenty and eight sons, and threescore daughters.)
This passage describes King Rehoboam's extensive polygamous family during his reign over Judah, noting his eighteen wives and sixty concubines who bore him twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters, with particular favoritism shown to Maachah the daughter of Absalom. It highlights the political and cultural practices of ancient monarchs who formed alliances through multiple marriages, contrasting with God's original design for monogamous union in Genesis, and sets the context for Rehoboam's efforts to secure his throne amid the kingdom's division after Solomon's death.