Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Samuel · About this commentary
The Woman at Endor
1 Samuel 28:1-14
1 In those days, the Philistines gathered their armies together for warfare, to fight with Israel. Achish said to David, “Know assuredly that you will go out with me in the army, you and your men.” · WEB
Heaven has gone silent, so the king who outlawed mediums goes to one by night, in disguise, and asks for the prophet he never obeyed.
When Saul saw the army of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly 1 Samuel 28:5.
The armies face each other across the Jezreel valley — Philistines at Shunem, Israel on Gilboa — and Israel's king is undone before a blow is struck. What he does next is prompted by the verse that governs the whole chapter.
When Saul inquired of Yahweh, Yahweh didn't answer him by dreams, by Urim, or by prophets 1 Samuel 28:6.
All three legitimate channels are named and all three are silent. The silence is not arbitrary: Saul had murdered the priesthood that carried the Urim 1 Samuel 22:18, ignored the prophet while he lived, and told God plainly for years what he thought of his word. A man who has spent a reign refusing answers finds, in the hour he wants one, that he has run out of people to ask.
"Seek for me a woman who has a familiar spirit, that I may go to her and inquire of her" 1 Samuel 28:7.
And so the king turns to the one thing left, which is the thing he himself had banned. The law's ruling is unambiguous and severe — consulting mediums is defection, listed with child sacrifice among the practices that emptied the land of its previous tenants Leviticus 19:31 Deuteronomy 18:10–12 — and Saul had enforced it 1 Samuel 28:3. His own edict is why the woman is frightened, and why the visit needs the disguise.
Saul disguised himself and put on other clothing, and went, he and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night 1 Samuel 28:8.
Everything about the approach condemns it: the costume, the darkness, the two-man escort — the man who once hid among the baggage 1 Samuel 10:22 is hiding again, now from God rather than from a crowd. And he swears in Yahweh's name that no punishment will reach her for breaking Yahweh's law 1 Samuel 28:10, which is the last stage of a conscience: using God's name to guarantee disobedience to God.
"Whom shall I bring up to you?" He said, "Bring Samuel up for me" 1 Samuel 28:11.
The request is the tragedy in one line. He wants the prophet whose living counsel he set aside — a man does not become teachable by summoning a teacher he already ignored. And the woman's reaction gives the scene away: she cried with a loud voice 1 Samuel 28:12, startled by whatever appears, and instantly certain of her client's identity. Whatever came up out of the earth that night, it did not come at her call in the way she expected.
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