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.