After riches and pride, Jacob moved on to speak of a grosser crime. His people were trying to excuse and justify their immoral behavior by citing the examples of their royal progenitors David and Solomon, who had numerous wives and concubines. Jacob declared that “David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before … the Lord.” A modern-day revelation clarifies and qualifies exactly what was abominable in their marital relationships: “David also received many wives and concubines, and also Solomon and Moses my servants, as also many others of my servants, from the beginning of creation until this time; and in nothing did they sin save in those things which they received not of me” (D&C 132:38; emphasis added). It is important to realize that the law of plural marriage is not condemned, but David’s and Solomon’s handling of the law, or their abuses of the law, is condemned (see also Deuteronomy 7:1–4; 17:17; 1 Kings 11:1–6, noting JST corrections).
Political leaders, priests, and prophets in the Near East about the same time as Jacob (for example, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Malachi) had to deal with similar abuses of marriage laws, marriages out of the covenant, divorces, and so on (Ezra 9:1–2, 12; Nehemiah 9:1–2; 13:23–27; Malachi 2:14–16).
Jacob explained the Lord’s desire for the descendants of father Lehi: “I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph. Wherefore, I the Lord God will not suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old.”