1 Samuel 28:8

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.

And Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment,.... Stripped himself of his royal robes, or military apparel, as supreme commander, and clothed himself in the habit of a peasant or a common soldier; and this not only that he might not be known by the woman, but that he might pass from his army incognito, and it might not be known that he was gone, and especially whither he was gone: and he went, and two men with him: these, according to the tradition of the Jews (e), were Abner and Amasa; but it is not probable that Saul should leave his army destitute of their general at such a time as this: and they came to the woman by night; not only that they might not be seen, but because it was a work of darkness they were going about, and it was only in the night season that such persons exercised their black art; though the Jews (f) say it was day, only because of their distress it was like tonight with them; but the literal sense is best: and he said, I pray thee divine unto me by the familiar spirit; exercise her art of divination, by the assistance of the familiar spirit she conversed with: and bring me up whom I shall name unto thee: that is, from the dead; for necromancy was the kind of divination she professed; and such persons pretended to have a power to bring up a deceased person, and consult with him about secret and future things. (e) Vajikra Rabba, sect. 26. fol. 167. 1. Shalshalet ib. (f) Tanchuma apud Jarchiura in loc.

1 Samuel 28:8 . Saul disguised himself — Both because he was ashamed to be known, or thought guilty of this practice, and because he suspected the woman, if she knew him, would not practise her art before him. And he went — In all haste that very night, stripped of his regal apparel, and attended only by two companions. How nearly allied are infidelity and impiety to superstition; and what will not they do who will not confide in and obey God! But a few hours before he was too haughty to profess himself the servant of the living God, and to observe his laws, and now he is the slave of his fears and follies! “The most infidel man,” says Delaney, “that I ever conversed with, was, by the accounts of those who best knew him, the most superstitious.”

8 . they came to the woman by night ] It was an adventurous journey. They had to pass over the shoulder of the hill on which the Philistines were encamped, and traverse a distance of not less than ten or twelve miles. The darkness around was a fit emblem of the darkness in Saul’s soul. Cp. John 13:30 , and Augustine’s comment “Nox erat, et ipse qui exivit erat nox,” (It was night, and he who went forth was night). bring me him up , &c.] A more precise definition of the method of divination “by Ob .” Cp. Deuteronomy 18:10-11 . Probably Saul expected to hear a voice, but not to see a form. Necromancy was practised among the Greeks and other heathen nations. There was a famous oracle of this kind on the River Acheron in Epirus ( νεκυομαντεῖον ). 1 Samuel 28:8

And Saul {d} disguised himself, and put on other raiment, and he went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night: and he said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring me him up, whom I shall name unto thee. (d) He does not seek God in his misery, but is led by Satan to unlawful means, which in his conscience he condemns.

(8) And Saul disguised himself. —The disguise and the time chosen for the expedition served a double purpose. The king would, he thought, be unknown in the darkness and disguise when he came to the witch’s dwelling, and there was, too, a far greater probability of his escaping his Philistine foes, whose army lay between him and the village of En-dor. Divine unto me by the familiar spirit.—Literally, divine unto me by the ôb. Keil’s remark is interesting: “Prophesying by the ôb was probably performed by calling up a departed spirit from Sheol, and obtaining prophecies—i.e., disclosures—concerning one’s own fate through the medium of such a spirit.” No other commentator touches on the ôb here, and Keil leaves it in doubt as to whether he considered the ôb was some special spirit devoted to the service of the mistress of the ôb, or the spirit or soul of one already dead, who, through some occult power, was to be brought back again for a season to this earth. As far as we can judge of these old mysteries, the sorcerer or sorceress possessed, or was supposed to possess, a “familiar.” Through the aid of this “familiar,” the departed spirit was compelled or induced to re-visit this world, and to submit to certain questioning. The Hebrew rendered “divine unto me” is of Syriac origin, like most of those words describing illicit vaticinations.—Speaker’s Commentary.

This miserable power, if it did exist, was one of the things the Israelites learned from the original inhabitants of Canaan. These “black” arts, as they have been called, have, in all ages, in every degree of civilisation, always had an extraordinary fascination for men. It is well known that even in our own “cultured age” similar pretensions are put forth, and the dead are still invoked, summoned, and questioned, as they were in the half-barbarous age when Saul and his companions, in their desperate strait, sought the witch of En-dor. And bring me him up.—The popular idea has always been that Sheol, the place of departed spirits, is somewhere beneath the ground or earth on which we live, just as heaven, the abode of God and His holy angels, is in a region above the earth. St. Paul speaks in this popular language (Ephesians 4:9), where he refers to the lower parts of the earth as the abode of departed spirits. Hence we have here, “bring me him up.” The Christian Church, Bishop Wordsworth reminds us, has adopted this language into her creeds, where she says that Christ in His human soul descended into hell (Hades). Keil well remarks on this human idea of what is “above” and “below”: “With our modes of thought, which are so bound up with time and space, it is impossible to represent to ourselves in any other way the difference and contrast between blessedness with God and shade-life in death.”

8-14. bring me him up, whom I shall name unto thee—This pythoness united to the arts of divination a claim to be a necromancer (De 18:11); and it was her supposed power in calling back the dead of which Saul was desirous to avail himself. Though she at first refused to listen to his request, she accepted his pledge that no risk would be incurred by her compliance. It is probable that his extraordinary stature, the deference paid him by his attendants, the easy distance of his camp from En-dor, and the proposal to call up the great prophet and first magistrate in Israel (a proposal which no private individual would venture to make), had awakened her suspicions as to the true character and rank of her visitor. The story has led to much discussion whether there was a real appearance of Samuel or not.

On the one hand, the woman's profession, which was forbidden by the divine law, the refusal of God to answer Saul by any divinely constituted means, the well-known age, figure, and dress of Samuel, which she could easily represent herself, or by an accomplice—his apparition being evidently at some distance, being muffled, and not actually seen by Saul, whose attitude of prostrate homage, moreover, must have prevented him distinguishing the person though he had been near, and the voice seemingly issuing out of the ground, and coming along to Saul—and the vagueness of the information, imparted much which might have been reached by natural conjecture as to the probable result of the approaching conflict—the woman's representation—all of this has led many to think that this was a mere deception. On the other hand, many eminent writers (considering that the apparition came before her arts were put in practice; that she herself was surprised and alarmed; that the prediction of Saul's own death and the defeat of his forces was confidently made), are of opinion that Samuel really appeared.