1 Samuel 28:12

28:7-19 When we go from the plain path of duty, every thing draws us further aside, and increases our perplexity and temptation. Saul desires the woman to bring one from the dead, with whom he wished to speak; this was expressly forbidden, De 18:11. All real or pretended witchcraft or conjuration, is a malicious or an ignorant attempt to gain knowledge or help from some creature, when it cannot be had from the Lord in the path of duty. While Samuel was living, we never read of Saul's going to advise with him in any difficulties; it had been well for him if he had. But now he is dead, Bring me up Samuel. Many who despise and persecute God's saints and ministers when living, would be glad to have them again, when they are gone. The whole shows that it was no human fraud or trick. Though the woman could not cause Samuel's being sent, yet Saul's inquiry might be the occasion of it. The woman's surprise and terror proved that it was an unusual and unexpected appearance. Saul had despised Samuel's solemn warnings in his lifetime, yet now that he hoped, as in defiance of God, to obtain some counsel and encouragement from him, might not God permit the soul of his departed prophet to appear to Saul, to confirm his former sentence, and denounce his doom? The expression, Thou and thy sons shall be with me, means no more than that they shall be in the eternal world.

1 Samuel 28:12 . And when the woman saw Samuel — The particle when, which our translators have inserted here, and which is not in the original text, embarrasses the sense, and is calculated to give the reader a wrong idea of this transaction, leading him to think that some space of time intervened between Saul’s request and Samuel’s appearance, during which the woman was employed in practising her art. Whereas the Hebrew implies no such thing. It is literally, And he (Saul) said, Bring me up Samuel; and the woman saw Samuel, and cried with a loud voice, &c. — The true state of this affair seems to have been, that as soon as Saul had signified whom he wished to have brought up, the woman was about to proceed to her charms and incantations, “designing,” says Dr. Dodd, “either to put some trick upon Saul, by producing an accomplice to represent Samuel; or, may we not believe that evil spirits, really assisting on such occasions, might, and did come in to the aid of execrable wretches, sold to their service like this woman!” Be this, however, as it may, contrary to all her expectation, the moment Saul had mentioned the name of Samuel, the woman saw a venerable figure before her, which made her shriek out with astonishment, Why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul — She knew this appearance was not owing to any contrivance of her own, or her associates.

It was what she in no wise expected; and she immediately concluded, that it could be no less a person than the king of Israel that this venerable person was really sent to. From all the circumstances of the relation, it appears that the woman herself was convinced, as the Egyptian magicians were upon another occasion, that this was the finger of God. To suppose that the woman herself, by her familiar spirit or spells, raised Samuel, or any evil spirit that personated him; or that she put a trick upon Saul, by causing one of her associates to appear as Samuel, is so contrary to reason, and the circumstances of the story, that no unprejudiced mind can well, upon an attentive perusal, take it in any such light. Indeed, the credit of the historian is implicated in this relation. He expressly says the woman saw Samuel, and if we believe that she did not see Samuel, but only an evil spirit personating him, we must call in question either the ability or integrity of the sacred writer: we must conceive either that he did not know what he wrote about, or that he designed to deceive his readers. Supposing then that both the woman and Saul might be deceived by an impostor in Samuel’s guise; yet we ask, Was this author deceived? Or did he mean to deceive us, when he gives us to understand, that the woman saw Samuel, and was frighted at the sight!

Verse 12. - When the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice. Evidently the last thing that she had expected was that anything else should happen than the usual illusion by which she imposed upon her victims; nor is it certain that anything else did happen. Her assertion that she saw Samuel was probably false; and it was in feigned excitement that she cried out, Why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul. She could not but have noticed the tall stature, the dignified manner, and also the intense excitement of her strange visitor; and when he bade her call up the spirit of Samuel, she must have been dull indeed not to know who the stranger was. 1 Samuel 28:12

It is manifest both that the apparition of Samuel was real, and also that the woman was utterly unprepared for it. Why hast thou deceived me ... - She perhaps inferred that Samuel would have answered the call of none inferior to the king. Or it may be the presence of an inhabitant of the world of spirits brought a sudden illumination to her mind.

(12) And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice. —Nothing is more clear from the narration than that the woman of En-dor saw something she never dreamed of seeing. Whatever did appear that night was different from anything she had seen before. Whether or not she was an impostor matters little to us. From the severe enactments in the Mosaic code respecting these practices, it would seem as though in the background there was something dark and sinister. At all events, on this memorable occasion, the witch was evidently amazed and appalled at the success of her enchantments. Ewald supposes that she burst into a loud cry on seeing Samuel’s shade, because it ascended with such frightfully threatening gestures, as it could have used only against its deadly enemy, Saul; and she then saw that the questioner must be Saul. This can, however, only be taken as an ingenious surmise. There is a singular passage in the Chaggigah Treatise of the Babylonian Talmud (quoted below), which—contrary to the usual interpretation of the word rendered “gods” ( 1Samuel 28:13 )—assumes that a second form “came up” with Samuel; and one Jewish interpretation tells us that these were “judges”—so rendering the Elohim of 1Samuel 28:13 —judges robed in their judicial mantles; and it was the sight of these awful ministers of justice which appalled the consciously guilty woman.

Deeply interesting, however, as are these traditions and comments, handed down probably from a school of expositors which flourished before the Christian era, we hardly need anything more to account for the cry of terror which burst from the woman than this appearance of the venerable seer, evidently by her quite unlooked for. And the woman spake to Saul.—At this juncture the woman recognised in the unknown stranger King Saul. For a moment remembering his stern, ruthless procedure in such cases of sorcery as the one in which she was then engaged, she thinks herself betrayed, and given over to a shameful death of agony; and she turns to the king boeide her with a piteous expostulation, “Why hast thou deceived me?” The question now comes up, How did she come to recognise Saul in the unknown? Ewald’s ingenious suggestion has been mentioned above. Keil suggests that the woman had fallen into a state of clairvoyance, in which she recognised persons who, like Saul in his disguise, were unknown to her by face. Josephus (6:14, 2), no doubt writing from traditional sources, asserts that Samuel had most likely revealed the presence of Saul to the witch. “Samuel saw through Saul’s disguise, which had deceived her whom Saul came to consult, as he spoke to Saul as Saul. So Ahijah the prophet, though blind by age, saw through the disguise of the wife of Jeroboam (1Kings 14:2; 1Kings 14:6).”—Bishop Wordsworth. On the whole, Josephus’s explanation is probably the true one.

She cried with a loud voice, for fear of her life, Saul himself being witness of her crime. Thou art Saul: this she knew, either by some gesture of reverence which this supposed Samuel might show to Saul, as to the king; or by information from this ghost; or from the spirit by whose help she had raised him.