You might have seen a pain scale in your doctor's office before. One common type shows a series of numbered cartoon faces moving from 0 (smiling and pain-free) to 10 (weeping in agony.) A doctor would ask a person in pain which face matched up with what they were feeling. They might seem simple.
In our day this might be more than one. For Israelite King Echov, one particular foreign wife, Isabel, was one too many. King David is said to have had eighteen wives and concubines, seven mentioned by name in the OT and the others mentioned in the oral tradition.
As a matter of fact, a study of the lives of men like King David and King Solomon (who had 300 concubines; 1 Kings 11:3) reveals that many of their problems stemmed from polygamous relationships (2 Samuel 11:2-4). The Bible never explains why God allowed men to have concubines. He allowed divorce and polygamy, too, although neither was part of His original plan for marriage. Jesus said God allowed divorce because of the hardness of menâs hearts (Matthew 19:8).