Concubines in the Bible: Symbolism of Divided Desire and Secondary Creation in Neville Goddard’s Teachings

And no—this isn’t your Margaret Atwood dystopia -The Handmaids Tale. We’re diving into something far more inwardly dramatic: the symbolic use of concubines in the spiritual psychology of the Bible, as revealed by Neville Goddard.

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The Core Symbolism: Divided Desire and the Shadow of Creation

In Neville Goddard’s teachings, the Bible is not a historical account but a psychological blueprint—every character and event unfolding within the mind of the individual. Within this metaphysical framework, concubines represent something quietly potent: fragmented desires, secondary manifestations, and efforts of the imagination that are not wholly aligned with faith.

Unlike the wife—who symbolises full union between imagination and belief—the concubine is an image of partial acceptance, outer effort, or doubt-ridden creation.

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1. Hagar and the Perils of Forcing the Promise

Sarah giving her handmaid Hagar to Abraham (Genesis 16) is often seen as desperation, but in symbolic terms, it represents the attempt to bring forth a desire through human planning rather than divine assumption. Hagar conceives Ishmael, but the true child of promise—Isaac—is only born when Sarah herself embraces faith.

Ishmael = manifestation born of anxiety, impatience, or external effort
Isaac = manifestation born of fulfilled inner conviction

In Neville's language: Ishmael is what you get when you try to force reality to bend without first entering the state of the wish fulfilled.

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2. Children of the Concubines: The Offspring of Divided Consciousness

Throughout the Bible, concubines bear children who are recorded but not central to the divine narrative. These offspring symbolise outer results of inner fragmentation—manifestations that come from states of worry, need, or double-mindedness. They are real, but not aligned with the higher thread of transformation.

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3. Solomon’s Fall: Desire Scattered Across a Thousand Attachments

King Solomon, the epitome of wisdom, ultimately loses his spiritual footing through his many wives and concubines (1 Kings 11). In symbolic terms, this represents a once-clear consciousness now scattered across many desires, beliefs, and foreign attachments.

When imagination no longer holds its aim, the kingdom of self falters. Even wisdom cannot replace the power of a focused, unified assumption.

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4. Wife vs. Concubine: Full Assumption vs. Fragmented Belief

The symbolic wife—like Mary, the mother of Jesus—represents complete surrender to the divine idea. She says, “Be it unto me according to thy word.” This is the creative act in its highest form: imagining the end and fully inhabiting it.

The concubine, by contrast, reflects the state of almost believing—of going through the motions without embodying the inner transformation.

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Final Thought: Creating from Wholeness

In the language of manifestation, concubines are the side-projects of a mind not yet centred in its aim. Neville teaches that all things are brought forth by imagination—but only that which is assumed and felt with full faith is born as a true promise fulfilled.

The stories of concubines remind us to check where we’re creating from:

• Am I acting from fear or faith?

• Is this desire whole, or is it scattered across doubts?

• Am I the wife to my vision—or merely a concubine to my wishful thinking?

Because in this inner drama, the true heir always comes from the union of belief and imagination—not from the schemes of impatience.