If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish.
This verse comes from the Mosaic Law — a set of rules God gave Moses for the ancient Israelite community. In that culture, it was legally permitted for a man to have more than one wife. This verse addresses the situation where a husband takes a second wife, making clear that doing so does not free him from his obligations to his first wife. She must still receive food, clothing, and marital intimacy. In an era when women had almost no legal standing or economic independence, this was a significant protection. The law did not celebrate polygamy — it fenced in the damage it could cause to real, vulnerable people.
Lord, you built love for the overlooked right into your law. Forgive me for the ways I let people drift to the edges of my care when life gets busy or something new captures my attention. Help me be faithful — not just at the beginning, but in the long, quiet middle. Amen.
Before there were shelters for domestic abuse or divorce attorneys, there was this: a law scratched into ancient stone insisting that a woman must not be starved, left unclothed, or abandoned in her own bed. This verse challenges something we all quietly do — we move on. New relationships, new phases, new people get our best attention while those who have been around longest start to get less. The friend you have not texted back in three weeks. The parent you keep meaning to call. The spouse who gets your leftover energy after everyone else gets your best. This ancient law about food and clothing is actually a law about presence and faithfulness. God built protections for the overlooked into the very fabric of society — long before anyone had language for it. The question it leaves you with is uncomfortably personal: who in your life might be slowly feeling deprived?
What does this law reveal about how God views the protection of vulnerable people, even when it exists inside imperfect or flawed social systems?
Are there people in your life — long-term friends, family members, a spouse — who might be receiving less of your care and presence than they once did?
This verse permits a practice we now recognize as harmful. How do you hold together the idea that God's law was both genuinely protective and also shaped by its cultural moment?
How does this verse challenge the way you think about commitment — not just in marriage, but in friendship, parenting, or community?
What is one specific way you could show someone in your life this week that they have not drifted to the edges of your attention or care?
Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.
1 Corinthians 7:1
Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.
1 Corinthians 7:3
When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.
Deuteronomy 24:1
If her master marries another wife, he may not reduce her food, her clothing, or her privilege as a wife.
AMP
If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights.
ESV
'If he takes to himself another woman, he may not reduce her food, her clothing, or her conjugal rights.
NASB
If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights.
NIV
If he takes another wife, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marriage rights.
NKJV
“If a man who has married a slave wife takes another wife for himself, he must not neglect the rights of the first wife to food, clothing, and sexual intimacy.
NLT
If he marries another woman, she retains all her full rights to meals, clothing, and marital relations.
MSG