… not in any particular order

1. Have God create a wife for you while you sleep.

And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This [is] now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
–Genesis 2:20-25

2. Find a man with seven daughters and then impress him.

“The priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to draw water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. But some shepherds came and drove them away. Moses got up and came to their defense and watered their flock.” When the father found out what Moses had done, he told his daughters to invite him to break bread. “Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah in marriage.”
–Exodus 2:16-21

3. Marry a captive woman.

Suppose you see among the captives a beautiful woman whom you desire and want to marry, and so you bring her home to your house: she shall shave her head, pare her nails, discard her captive’s garb, and shall remain in your house a full month, mourning for her father and mother; after that you may go into her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.
–Deuteronomy 21:11-13

4. When you see someone you like, go home and tell your parents.

“I have seen a . . . woman; now get her for me.” If your parents question your decision, simply say, “Get her for me. She’s the one for me.” (Samson)
–Judges 14:1-3

5. Go to a party and hide. When the women come out to dance, grab one and carry her off to be your wife.

Therefore they commanded the children of Benjamin, saying, Go and lie in wait in the vineyards; And see, and, behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances, then come ye out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin … And the children of Benjamin did so, and took [them] wives, according to their number, of them that danced, whom they caught: and they went and returned unto their inheritance, and repaired the cities, and dwelt in them.
–Judges 21:20-23

6. Purchase a piece of property, and get a woman as part of the deal.

Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place: ye [are] witnesses this day.
–Ruth 4:5-10

7. Cut 200 foreskins off of your future father-in-law’s enemies and get his daughter for a wife.

And Saul said, Thus shall ye say to David, The king desireth not any dowry, but an hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to be avenged of the king’s enemies. But Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines … Wherefore David arose and went, he and his men, and slew of the Philistines two hundred men; and David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in full tale to the king, that he might be the king’s son in law. And Saul gave him Michal his daughter to wife.
–1 Samuel 18:27

8. Don’t be so picky. Make up for quality with quantity.

But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, [and] Hittites; Of the nations [concerning] which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: [for] surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart.
–1 Kings 11:1-3

9. Become the emperor of a huge nation and hold a beauty contest.

And let the king appoint commissioners in all the provinces of his kingdom to gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem in the citadel of Susa under custody of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, who is in charge of the women; let their cosmetic treatments be given them. And let the girl who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti. This pleased the king and he did so.
–Esther 2:3-4

10. Marry a prostitute.

When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord. So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.
–Hosea 1:2-3

Tip of the hat to RaptureReady.com, a Christian fundamentalist site ordinarily dedicated to assisting its followers in their preparations for the rapture – the second coming of Jesus when all the faithful will float up into the air and be taken to heaven… or something. The info for this post was taken from a section called “Humor Break” but I find the entire site kinda funny.

Shavuah Tov.

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About the author

ck

Founder and Publisher of Jewlicious, David Abitbol lives in Jerusalem with his wife, newborn daughter and toddler son. Blogging as "ck" he's been blocked on twitter by the right and the left, so he's doing something right.

11 Comments

  • Have your father send his servant to pick out a wife for you from your father’s relatives in the “old country.” Said servant should pray to G-d that the right girl show up and offer him water AND enough water for all of his camels. The girl who did just that was Rivkah (Rebecca) emainu (our mother), who married Yitzchak (Isaac).
    -Bereshit, parsha Chayei Sarah.

  • I thought the best way (if you aren’t worried about pesty divine reprocussions) was to be a peeping tom, spy on a hot chick taking a bath, have her brought to you, knock her up, have her husband sent on a suicide mission at the front lines and then marry his wife when she gets over it.

    And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king’s house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon…[David has sex with her]…And he [David] wrote in the letter [to Joab], saying, Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten, and die…And when the mourning was past, David sent and fetched her to his house, and she became his wife, and bare him a son.

    ahhh…it’s good to be the king!

  • Not so good stenis because that little piece of booty will eventually cost you the lives of 4 of your sons. There was a reason I didn’t include that ….

  • In any case–and in most of these cases–I think we can all agree that “it’s good to be the king.”

    PS, I hear that Rapture thing’s going to be the bizz-omb.

  • Yeah, you lose a kid or two. And God gets angry. And some prophet comes along and tricks yer dumb ass into convicting yourself via a rather obvious argument by analogy. Having said that, lets look at your list: Solomon did NOT do very well, at least his legacy fared poorly as a result of the many wives. As for Samson, well, he ended up getting an unwanted hair cut (like me! Thanks Meg!), his eyes poked out and had to beg God just to be the equivalent of a suicide bomber back in the day. Real swell. As for Adam well, his wife led him to give up immortality and perpetual bliss. So maybe all in all David’s ending was relatively happy given the nasty things that biblical style seduction can bring in its wake…

  • I have always wondered about the violent history of animosity between the Jews and the Philistines till this day.

    It’s been all about the lust for their women and their foreskins hasn’t it. This could explain their preemptive strike policy. To hell with the women, having your foreskin ripped off has gotta hurt like hell.

  • There are no Philistines any more. The Philistines of the bible were a sea faring people from Southern Greece and Cypress who settled along the southern mediteranean coast. There is no physical, ethnic or historical connection between them and the Palestinians, if that’s what you were suggesting.

  • I really didn’t know if there was a connection to Palestinians or not CK. Just trying to be amusing and forgot the smiley again.

  • Well I wasn’t “unamused” or anything – there’s just sometimes this perception that the Philistines from the bible and Palestinians are the same people. Just wanted to take the opportunity to point out that they’re not. That’s all. And I won’t forget the smiley face:

    🙂

    See?

  • Interesting tidbit: one way that archaeologists differentiate Philistine areas from Israelite areas is…pig bones or lack thereof.

  • the quicker the jews recognise that jesus is the messiar the better it will be if you hve broken one commandment of the moses law your under a curse .GOD wont forgive because you. because you have rejected his salvation plan god always brings an enemy on his people when they dont listen we in the west arnt any better its just that we have better promises in the new covnant .peace for israel gods chosen land and his precious people