Further understanding of what God commands about polygamy continues with His instruction to Israelite kings. Careful instruction by God was necessary because, when Israel became a nation, and even in patriarchal times before that, wealthy men and kings often took multiple wives and established harems as symbols of success, power and royalty.
In this light, here is what God instructed all kings: “When you are come unto the land which the LORD your God gives you, and shall possess it, and shall dwell therein, and shall say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me…But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses…Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away…” (Deut. 17:14, 16-17). Consider all that God could have instructed regarding kings and their conduct. Yet, He listed only a handful of points of paramount importance. Abstaining from polygamy was among them—and verses 18 and 19 state that it was “LAW”!