(Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had lamented him, and they had buried him in Ramah, even in his own city. And Saul had put away the necromancers and the soothsayers out of the land.)
Two facts open this chapter. Samuel the prophet is dead, and Saul had already driven every medium and spiritist out of Israel — the very people he will soon go looking for.
Samuel was the channel through which God had kept speaking to a king who never obeyed.
Samuel dies, and his death is like a prelude to the last period of Saul's history. The faithful servant who had judged Israel during difficult times was no more. God had chosen him to anoint the king according to the flesh and then the king according to grace. He was the first of the prophets. In the middle of these dark times God's grace kept up communication with the people through the prophetic word. At every important point in his life Saul had met the prophet. The prophet came so that Saul might know God's thoughts, orders, counsels, and judgments. No doubt he had not listened to them, but he had been able to hear them. To have God's word within reach is an immense privilege and an immense responsibility, and Saul had enjoyed this privilege. Samuel himself had passed the Word on during his lifetime to prophets God raised up to teach others. Now these prophets themselves were no longer answering. This whole period had come to an end for Saul and for his people.
The book records the burial at Ramah twice. The scale of the mourning clashes with the way Israel had treated Samuel while he lived.
It is twice repeated that when Samuel died "all Israel lamented him, and buried him in Ramah, his own city" (1 Sam. 25:1; 28:3). A state funeral, with public mourning, for the man whose faithful words nobody heeded while he lived! The wickedness of both king and people had made his later years bitter. It was a great day — "all the Israelites were gathered together," we are told. Was Saul present? It is not stated, but flesh can be inconsistent enough even for that.
Saul's action against mediums and necromancers — people who claimed to contact the dead — was not his own idea. It carried out commands God had already given in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible.
There are references to many other rules of the Pentateuch... In 1 Sam. 28:3, the reference is to the Pentateuch's ban on consulting those who had familiar spirits, Deut. 18:10-11, and Lev. 20:27.
Why did Saul do this good thing? One writer sees the purge as Saul's bid to make up for his earlier disobedience over Amalek.
This will explain Saul's activity in seeking to clear those who had familiar spirits out of the land. Fresh zeal against spiritists would win back the favour he had forfeited by his failure over Amalek. That is not to say spiritism should have been excused or allowed in the land, or that a faithful king would not cut off, as David says in prophecy of the true Messiah, "all the evildoers from the city of the LORD."
The same hand that swept the land clean later knocked on a medium's door. That collapse tells us what the earlier zeal was worth.
Saul's case shows how far flesh can go along a path that looks devoted. Yet when the testing time came, it proved that there never was any real link with God. His outward zeal had destroyed the witchcraft in Israel while he kept up a religious character. But his conscience never woke — he had no faith... Like the washed sow, he goes back to what he had once destroyed, and which even by natural conscience he knew was evil.
The chapter's two halves — the clean-up and the séance — belong to a single story that started years earlier.
On the day he failed to destroy Amalek, Saul never imagined where it would lead. The cattle he spared "to sacrifice to the Lord" — in disobedience to His word — would grow into the spells of someone with a familiar spirit. We do not realise how all evil hangs together. When one link of obedience to God is cut, the soul puts itself into Satan's hands. This is what happened with our first parents. To disobey God is to listen to Satan.
- Privilege — Saul had the word of God within reach through Samuel his whole reign; he could hear it even when he would not heed it.
- Loss — the prophet's death ended that. Israel mourned him at Ramah, and the man who had ignored him living now had no voice left to consult.
- Record — Saul's purge of mediums obeyed a real command of the law, and it stood as the one part of his record that still looked right.
- Motive — one writer traces that zeal back to a wish to buy back the favour Saul had lost over Amalek, not to faith.
- Harvest — one cut link of obedience grew into the séance at Endor. Outward zeal without a purged conscience does not hold when the testing hour comes.
And the Philistines gathered themselves together, and came and encamped in Shunem; and Saul gathered all Israel together, and they encamped in Gilboa.
Two armies camp on opposite sides of the valley, and the future of the whole nation rests on the outcome. The verse reads like a line of military reporting. But it names the hill where Saul will die, and it raises the question the rest of the chapter answers: where does a man turn when the crisis comes?
This is not one campaign among many. It brings everything that has gone wrong in Saul's reign to a head.
But I must now hurry on to the closing scenes of this solemn and moving history. The night of Israel is now setting in with many a dark and heavy cloud. Samuel is dead. The Philistines are as strong and threatening as ever. David, the deliverer of the people, has been driven outside the camp. Our poor king, the slave of his own desires, is all fear and confusion. He asks God, but there is no answer. It was indeed a day of darkness and trouble to Israel. There was now a forsaking of the living for the dead, and a seeking out of mediums who whisper and mutter.
Saul had fought the Philistines all his life and had seemed to win. Their reappearance in full force at the end of his reign shows what those victories were worth.
But for Saul the death of Samuel was a reminder of how he had been cut off from God. The Philistines were fought so often and seemed to be beaten, yet they kept on asserting their power. We find them here, at the close of Saul's reign, with their strength undiminished. With Saul it was the opposite. He felt weak, and he felt defeat coming. These are the sure companions of a guilty conscience.
Scripture returns to the hill where Saul pitches his camp long after the battle is over.
Mountain range where Saul and Jonathan were killed (1 Sam. 31:1, 8; 2 Sam. 1:6, 21; 1 Chr. 10:1, 8). It is thought to lie south-west of the valley of Jezreel. When the news reached David he cried out: "You mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew or rain upon you, nor fields of offerings."
Saul's terror does not start on the battlefield. It starts here, at the sight of an army drawn up, and it deepens by steps.
He had been very much afraid at Samuel's announcement of judgment. He had been afraid, and his heart had trembled hard at the sight of the Philistine army — at the bare preparations for judgment. How much more when judgment is being carried out: "He was much terrified by the archers." So from the moment the sinner finds himself facing God's judgment, all his strength leaves him and gives way to terror.
Note: the writer quotes an older translation here. Where it says Saul was "much terrified by the archers," the ESV says he was "badly wounded by the archers."
These armies drive Saul to ask God for help. Scripture records that act twice, and the two records read it in opposite ways.
Look for a moment at 1 Sam. 28:6, "And when Saul inquired of the LORD," and compare it with 1 Chron. 10:14, "He did not seek guidance from the LORD." The book of Samuel records the outward act. The Holy Spirit in Chronicles pronounces God's judgment on the inward state of his soul. Despair pressed a useless cry to the Lord out of his heart. But it was no real turning to Him. He never shuts out the most desperate cry from a soul that is truly broken. All help was gone. In his fear he asks the Lord whom he had long disobeyed and neglected. Many others have done the same since, and like him have sunk deeper into despair.
While Saul camps at Gilboa, the identical mobilisation catches David on the wrong side of the line, among the Philistines he had gone to live with.
The day comes when the Philistines gather their armies once again to go to war against Israel. David cannot escape it. This will now make his false position among them plain. Poor David! What is he to do? How can he pull back after fooling the enemy about his plans and his sympathies? Let us remember that it is easier to enter a wrong path than to leave it.
The two men are in trouble at the same hour, but not in the same hands.
It is hard for us to say where all this would have ended, if David had been left to the full results of his false position. But this could not be. God in His grace was watching over His poor wanderer. He had rich and many-sided mercies in store for him, and also some humbling lessons and painful exercises of soul.
- Gathering — The Philistines return at the end of Saul's reign with their strength undiminished. The enemy Saul seemed to beat was never beaten.
- Trembling — Saul's fear starts at the sight of an army drawn up. It deepens at Samuel's words, and ends in terror under the archers on this same hill.
- Silence — He asks the Lord, but Chronicles says he "did not seek guidance from the LORD." Despair forced out a cry; it was not repentance.
- Gilboa — The hill named in this verse becomes the place of his death. David's lament over these mountains keeps the memory alive.
- Mercy — The same war exposes David's false position among the Philistines. Yet God was watching over His wanderer, with mercies and humbling lessons in store.
And when Saul saw the camp of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart greatly trembled.
Israel and the Philistines face each other for the battle that will end Saul's reign. The verse then turns from the size of the enemy to the inner state of a man who had spent years refusing God.
Two things press on Saul at once: the army in front of him, and what he knows about himself.
The Philistines have come to fight against Israel (vv. 4-5). Their numbers and apparent power dismay Saul. He knows he is not equal to the occasion, and he needs help. ... What right did he have to the Lord's direction when he had refused the Lord's Word?
Saul's trembling was not just a commander weighing the odds. It had an older cause.
In Saul there was a sense of weakness and a feeling that defeat was coming. These are the sure companions of a guilty conscience. In the hour of his terror he turns to God. But he does not turn in repentance or hope, which always go with a true work in the soul. He turns in despair.
The next verse gives the result of his inquiry: no reply, by any channel.
The enemy gathers together: Saul "was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly. And when Saul inquired of the LORD, the LORD did not answer him, either by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets" (vv. 5-6). This was worse than the days when Israel followed magic and foreign gods! Those at least seemed to answer Israel. It was an illusion, of course, but an illusion that lifted their sinking spirits for a moment. Now there is nothing but silence. What should he do? Whom should he ask? Whom can he lean on? Judgment is at the door: how can he escape it?
Each of the three ways of hearing from God was now closed — and one of them Saul had closed himself.
Long before this, he had broken off all connection with God. He had launched out on the broad river of self-will, and it was now carrying him swiftly to the final waterfall. So he gets no answer in any of the three possible ways. Dreams would be the most direct. God would come to him in the visions of the night and give His message, along with the certainty that it was true. Through Urim, God made His mind known by the priest. This worked through the Urim and Thummim in the breastplate the priest wore. But Saul had killed the priests, and so cut himself off from that source. And the prophet, the human channel of God's messages, was dead.
Scripture records this moment twice, and the two records seem to clash.
Look at 1 Samuel 28:6: "And when Saul inquired of the LORD." Now compare 1 Chronicles 10:14: "And did not inquire of the LORD." Samuel records the outward act. The Holy Spirit in Chronicles gives God's verdict on the inward condition of his soul. Despair forced a useless cry to the Lord out of his heart. But there was no real turning to Him — and He never shuts out the most desperate cry from a soul that is truly broken.
The same crisis showed what Saul had been trusting all along. Within hours he would be at the door of a medium at Endor.
But Saul's turning to a spirit medium for help is a true index of his heart. He had no faith in God. His faith was in the medium of Endor, and so he did not inquire of the Lord. In earlier days he had wrapped himself in zeal as in a garment. Extreme danger strips him of his borrowed robe, and he stands there in his own naked unbelief.
Saul's fear here is the first of three tremors. The line about the archers comes from an older translation of 1 Samuel 31:3.
Saul was terrified when Samuel announced the judgment (1 Samuel 28:20). He was afraid and his heart trembled greatly at the sight of the Philistine army — and that was only the preparation for judgment (1 Samuel 28:5). How much more when judgment actually falls: "He was much terrified by the archers." So from the moment the sinner stands before God's judgment, all his strength leaves him and gives place to terror.
- Fear — Saul's trembling is not a soldier's caution. It is the companion of a guilty conscience. He knows he is not equal to the hour.
- Silence — Fear sends him to God. Dreams, Urim and prophets give nothing back. He had cut himself off from the priests long before.
- Despair — Samuel records that he inquired; Chronicles says he did not. The outward cry was despair, not repentance. God never turns away a truly broken soul.
- Exposure — Danger strips off his borrowed zeal. He goes to the medium at Endor, and his real trust shows.
- Descent — The trembling only grows: at the army, at Samuel's sentence, at the archers. Before God's judgment a man's strength leaves him.
And Saul inquired of Jehovah; but Jehovah did not answer him, either by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Then said Saul to his servants, Seek me a woman that has a spirit of Python, that I may go to her and inquire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman who has a spirit of Python at En-dor.
God has gone silent, and Saul is out of options. So he sends his servants to find a medium — but what could she give him that God would not?
The verse opens with "then." It follows straight on from a prayer God would not answer. One writer sets that prayer beside the summary in Chronicles, which says Saul did not inquire of the Lord at all. (The quote uses an older translation.)
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Let us look for a moment at 1 Sam. 28:6, "And when Saul inquired of the Lord," and compare it with 1 Chron. 10:14, "And inquired not of the Lord." Samuel records the outward act. In Chronicles the Holy Spirit gives God's judgment on the inward state of his soul. Despair squeezed a useless cry out of his heart, but there was no real turning to Him. And He never shuts out the most desperate cry from a truly broken soul. All help was gone. In his fear he inquires of the Lord he had always disobeyed and neglected.
The silence was worse for Saul than Israel's old idolatry had been.
This position was more miserable than when Israel had followed magic and strange gods! At least those had seemed to answer Israel. It was an illusion, no doubt, but an illusion that lifted their sinking spirits for a moment. Now: nothing but silence… What to do? Whom to consult? Whom to lean on?
Saul himself had cleared mediums out of the land. Now he sends men to find one — breaking his own law as well as God's.
Consider, too, Saul's grievous sin in consulting the woman at Endor who had a familiar spirit, after having "put away those that had familiar spirits… out of the land" (1 Sam. 28:3)… By turning to this woman of Endor, Saul commits this terrible sin against his own ban and in inexcusable disobedience to God's command. All he hears from Samuel is, once more, the reason God had rejected him.
Another writer sees a judgment behind the move, not just a bad decision.
What a terrible judgment, when God takes back the grace a man has stubbornly despised! No other resource remained for Saul but to return to those things he had once thrown up.
Older translations call her a woman with a "familiar spirit." One dictionary explains the Hebrew word behind that phrase.
The word is ob, which means 'a leather bottle or skin.' It is thought to imply that such people claimed to be filled with a spirit… As an example of the meaning of this word we have the woman at Endor whom Saul consulted… It was her profession, so it seems, to call up departed spirits.
One writer separates what is real here from what is only illusion.
The reality is that a demon puts itself at the disposal of the medium; the illusion is that she is able to call up the dead. The demon only clothes itself with a shadowy appearance. Jesus holds the keys of death and of Hades, and no power but His own can open its doors. Satan himself cannot call up the dead. Those who died without believing are and remain "the spirits in prison." God alone, as an exception, could allow Samuel to come out of the unseen world and appear.
Saul goes at night, in borrowed clothes, with two men — and one commentator sees the whole man exposed in that detail.
"And Saul disguised himself, and put on other clothing." Every shred of honesty and truth was clearly gone.
The disguise also says something about how well known this trade still was, despite the ban.
He goes against his own law against sorcery. He asks his servants to find him a woman (not a man) who had contact with a familiar spirit (v. 7). They knew there was such a woman at En-dor, still in business. Despite Saul's ban, many people must have known about her unlawful trade.
One writer turns to people who try to contact the dead today.
The claim to put the living in communication with the dead is a monstrous fraud. The keys of Hades are in divine hands alone. Neither the just nor the unjust can be disturbed by spiritualist mediums. Yet it is not denied that such persons are in communication with the invisible world, but it is with demons they have to do.
- Cause. Saul's cry in verse 6 was despair, not repentance. Chronicles judges the heart behind the outward act: he did not truly seek the Lord.
- Vacuum. God's silence left him with less than the old idols gave. Even a comforting illusion was gone.
- Reversal. He goes back to the very evil he once cleared out, breaking his own law. Grace despised is grace withdrawn.
- Fraud. Her link to the unseen world was real, but it was to a demon. She had no power over the dead: the keys of death and Hades are Christ's alone.
- Result. Saul's ban had not killed the trade; his servants knew where to look. And from Samuel he heard only the reason God had rejected him.
And Saul disguised himself, and put on other garments, and he went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night; and he said, I pray thee, divine to me by the spirit of Python, and bring me [him] up whom I shall name to thee.
Saul faces his last battle, and heaven has gone quiet. So the king who once banned mediums from Israel puts on other clothes and goes to one by night.
The trip to Endor begins with silence. Saul could get no word from God, and one commentator names each channel that had closed:
He therefore gets no answer in any of the three possible ways. Dreams would be the most direct. God would come to him in the visions of the night and give him His message with the conviction that it was true. By Urim, God made His mind known through the priest, using the Urim and Thummim of the breastplate on the ephod. But Saul had killed the priests and cut himself off from that source. And the prophet, the human channel of God's messages, was dead. So every link is broken — personal, priestly, or prophetic.
Saul changes his clothes so the woman will not know him. Yet a disguise only works on someone who cannot see through it:
So the king disguises himself. Under cover of night he goes down with two companions to the haunt of the evil spirit, at last turning his back on the LORD. In the same way Jeroboam's wife pretended to be someone else when she came to the prophet. What madness it is to think of God as one just like ourselves, as though He could be deceived by a disguise! The night shines as the day to Him.
The costume also shows what Saul wanted that night: secrecy, and help he could not get from God:
To visit the woman, Saul disguises himself. How sadly degraded for a king of Israel! But he needed supernatural help. Since he had refused the Word of God, he turns in desperation to demonic sources. He took two men with him and went by night, for he wanted no one to suspect his consulting a spirit medium.
Saul himself had banned this trade. Now he uses it himself, and one writer sees a fault that runs deeper than Saul:
Earlier in his reign Saul had tried to stamp out this appalling evil, but apparently it was still practised secretly. What an inconsistent thing poor flesh is! It can grow angry at one form of wickedness and work to stamp it out. At the same time it freely indulges in other forms, just as offensive to God. Even God's true saints are not free from this danger. After Saul disobeyed God about Amalek, Samuel told him, "rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry" (1 Sam. 15:23). Why? Because it puts something in the place of God. Saul did this again and again in his life of self-pleasing.
(The ESV renders that verse: "For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.")
One writer weighs what the disguise says about Saul, and what the woman feared:
Every shred of honesty and truth was clearly gone… She was afraid that he might report her to the king!
The disguise hid Saul's face; the errand uncovered his heart. Pressure did not create his unbelief; it exposed it:
Saul's seeking help from one who had a familiar spirit is a true index of the heart. He had no faith in God, but in the witch of Endor; therefore he did not enquire of the LORD. In earlier days he had clothed himself with zeal as with a garment. Extreme danger strips him of his borrowed robe, and he appears in his own naked unbelief. God judges the heart. "Behold, You delight in truth in the inward being" (Ps. 51:6). The piercing eye of God saw no truth in Saul.
The night did not go as either of them planned. Commentators agree that the medium's craft never got started:
Before she could begin her incantations, Samuel appeared. She was not permitted to get in touch with her usual demon that night. The LORD intervened for reasons of His own. The woman was terrified at the appearance of Samuel, for she had never had such an experience before. God sent the prophet to the abandoned king; the woman had nothing whatever to do with the matter.
The outcome gives nothing to anyone hoping to reach the dead. Samuel came with a verdict, not with counsel:
This was beyond her art, and shows her plainly a higher power overpowering it: the "keys of hades" were in no witch's hand… He speaks straight to Saul while he hides his face from him. In a few words of judgment he announces the doom that is at hand.
- Silence — God gave Saul no answer by dream, priest, or prophet. Saul had killed the priests, and Samuel was dead.
- Disguise — New clothes may fool a stranger at Endor. They treat God as if He could not see in the dark.
- Descent — Saul broke the very law he had enforced. Anger at one sin sits easily beside indulging another.
- Exposure — Danger did not make Saul faithless. It stripped off his borrowed zeal and showed the unbelief already there.
- Sentence — The medium's art never worked. God sent Samuel Himself, and the answer Saul got was his own doom.
And the woman said to him, Behold, thou knowest what Saul has done, how he has cut off the necromancers and the soothsayers out of the land; and why layest thou a snare for my life, to cause me to die?
Saul comes by night to a woman he had outlawed, and asks her to do what his own law punished with death. She does not know who he is, so she quotes that law back to him and refuses.
The woman is not inventing a rule. She is describing a royal purge carried out earlier in Saul's reign, in line with God's written command.
In the closing days of the reign of Saul, the first king of Israel, something tragic happened. According to the commandment of Deuteronomy 13, Saul had cut off from the land of Israel those who had familiar spirits — in other words, mediums.
Older wording in these quotes calls them "those who had familiar spirits" and "wizards". The purge was real, but it was never complete.
For some reason, the servants knew quite well where to find the person he wanted. So with all his zeal in getting rid of witches, people still knew where they were.
Her question about a trap is the caution of a woman who could die for answering.
The woman is on guard. She suspects a trap to find her guilty of practising spiritism and have her put to death (v.9).
Her fear did Saul a service he refused to take.
He knew well that it was an unholy source, and one forbidden by God. He himself had at one time cut off those who had familiar spirits and wizards out of the land. The woman at Endor reminded him of this. It was a last warning to stop his downward course, if he would only take it. Death was the penalty for the sin of consulting such people (Lev. 20:6).
Saul could campaign against witchcraft and still hold on to sins just as offensive to God. Writers see a danger here far wider than Saul.
Earlier in his reign Saul had tried to stamp out this appalling evil. Apparently people still practised it in secret. What an inconsistent thing poor flesh is! It can grow indignant at one form of sin and work to suppress it. At the same time it freely indulges in other sins just as offensive to God. Even God's true saints are not free from this danger.
One writer traces the zeal itself back to Saul's failure over Amalek — a man trying to buy back lost ground.
This will explain Saul's activity in seeking to clear those who had familiar spirits out of the land. By fresh zeal against spiritists he would win back the favour he had forfeited by his failure over Amalek. Of course, that does not mean anyone should have tolerated or allowed spiritism in the land.
She speaks freely about "what Saul has done" only because she does not know she is speaking to Saul. The costume is the whole reason for the exchange.
"So Saul disguised himself and put on other garments." Every shred of honesty and truth was plainly gone.
Only one thing could remove her objection: the king's promise not to enforce his own law. He gives that promise in God's name.
When Saul asked her to bring up the man he would name, the woman protested. It was against the law of the kingdom, and it could cost her her life. Saul then had the audacity to swear to her by the LORD: "As the LORD lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing." The wretched man could not go further in sin than to pledge the LORD's holy name in a matter so hateful in His sight.
One writer measures what that promise cost Saul.
She does not know who he is, so she reminds him of his own decree. But Saul undoes all his past by swearing that no guilt will fall on her for what she is about to do.
- Law — Saul had cleared the mediums out of the land, as God had commanded. The woman knows it, and his own law is why she resists.
- Leak — the reform was never thorough. His servants knew where a medium lived, so the ban pushed the practice out of sight, not out of the land.
- Lopsided — a man can attack one sin hard while feeding another. Writers warn that believers are not safe from this.
- Last warning — her fear of the death penalty put Saul's own law in front of him one more time, a chance to stop that he refused.
- Loss — to calm her fear he swore by the Lord's name that she would go unpunished. One sentence cancelled the one thing in his reign that had looked like obedience.