If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated: If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated. In the original, and in all translations but ours, the words are rendered 'have had,' referring to events that have already taken place. [Septuagint, Ean de genoontai anthroopoo duo gunaikes kai tekoosin-If there have been to a man two wives, and they have born him sons. Vulgate, 'Si habuerit homo uxores duas et pepererint ei filios,' etc.] That the 'had' has, by some mistake, been omitted in our version, seems highly probable, from other verbs being in the past tense - "hers that was hated," not 'hers that is hated,' evidently intimating that she (the first wife) was dead at the time referred to.
Moses, therefore, does not here legislate upon the case of a man who has two wives at the same time, but on that of a man who has married twice in succession, the second wife after the decease of the first; and there was an obvious necessity for legislation in these circumstances; for the first wife, who was hated, was dead, and the second wife, the favourite, was alive: and with the feelings of a stepmother, she would urge her husband to make her own son the heir. This case has no bearing upon polygamy, which there is no evidence that the Mosaic code legalized (see Dwight's 'Hebrew Wife,' pp. 17, 18).
Verse 17. A double portion, х piy (H6310) shªnayim (H8147)] - a 'mouth (or, mouthful) or two;' a phrase founded on the ancient custom of a double or larger mess before a guest whom a host wishes to honour (Genesis 43:34; Luke 15:12: cf. 2 Kings 2:9; Zechariah 13:8).
That there was a necessity for such a legislative provision in the circumstances which this passage describes appears from the conduct of Abraham, who in his lifetime gave limited allowances to his other sons, while the bulk of his property was bequeathed to Isaac (see Rosenmuller, 'Alte und Neue Morgenland,' vol. 5:, p.
115).