1 Samuel 28:7 - Meaning and Application

Here, Saul looks for a witch, (1 Samuel 28:7). When God did not answer him, he should have humbled himself in repentance and kept seeking the Lord. Who knows whether God might have finally shown him mercy? But since he could find no comfort from heaven or from earth (Isaiah 8:21-22), he decides to knock at the gates of hell and see whether anyone there will help him or give him advice. He says, “Find me a woman who has a familiar spirit,” that is, a medium who claims contact with the dead, (1 Samuel 28:7).

His servants are too ready to help him in this evil plan. They quickly point him to a woman at Endor, a town not far away, who had escaped Saul’s order to kill such people. He decides to go to her. In this, Saul shows contempt for the God of Israel, as if any creature could help him when God had turned away from him. He also contradicts himself. He knew how wicked witchcraft was, or he would not have put to death those who used familiar spirits. Yet now he turns to that same thing as an oracle, even though he had condemned it before.

This happens often. Men speak sharply against sins they are not tempted to commit, but later they are overcome by the same sins. If someone had told Saul, when he was destroying witches, that he himself would soon consult one, he would have reacted like Hazael did, “What? Is your servant a dog?” But who can tell what evil people will fall into when they leave God and God leaves them?

After hearing of her, he hurries to the witch, but he goes by night and in disguise, with only two servants and likely on foot, (1 Samuel 28:8). See how those led captive by Satan are forced to lower themselves. Saul never looked more small than when he sneaked to a poor witch to learn his future. He also hides who he is. Evil works are works of darkness, and they hate the light. Saul does not go in his royal robes, but dressed like an ordinary soldier.

He does this partly because the witch might refuse him if she knew him, either out of fear that he was trying to trap her or to get revenge for his order against her kind. He also fears his own people will find out and hate him for it. Even sinners often blush and feel shame while doing evil, because natural conscience still speaks within them.

Then Saul tells her why he has come and promises that she will not be harmed. He wants her to bring up someone from the dead so he can speak with him. This was necromancy, or trying to gain guidance from the dead. The law clearly forbade it (Deuteronomy 18:11). It was also the same as “seeking the living among the dead” (Isaiah 8:19).

He says, “Bring up the person I name,” (1 Samuel 28:8). This assumes that people believed the soul lives after death, and that death is not the end. It also assumes that dead spirits were thought to have great knowledge. But it is foolish to think that any good soul would come at the command of an evil spirit, or that God would let a man gain real help through such a cursed and devilish practice after denying him the help of his own appointed ways.

The woman is afraid of the law and thinks he may be trying to trap her, (1 Samuel 28:9). God ordered it so that Saul would be told to his face about his own law against witches just when he was consulting one. That made his sin worse. She stresses the danger of Saul’s law, perhaps to make her price higher, for there is no mention of payment, but she likely demanded a large fee. She is careful about danger from Saul’s order, but she is not worried about God’s law or God’s wrath. She thinks about what Saul has done, not what God has done against such practices. She fears a trap for her body more than a trap for her soul.

That is common among sinners. They are often more afraid of human punishment than of God’s righteous judgment. Saul then swears that he will not betray her, (1 Samuel 28:10). It was his duty as king to punish her, and he knew it. Yet he swears he will not do it, as if his own oath could free him from obeying God’s command. He promises more than he can possibly give when he says no harm will come to her, because if he could not protect himself, he could much less protect her from God’s judgment.

Samuel, who had recently died, is the person Saul wants to speak with. The witch, with her dark arts, agrees to his request and brings them together. Once Saul gives her the assurance she wants, that he will not expose her, she quickly turns to her witchcraft and asks with confidence, “Whom shall I bring up for you?” (1 Samuel 28:11). The hope of escaping punishment makes sinners bolder in evil and harder in heart.

Saul asks for Samuel. Samuel had anointed him as king and had once been his faithful friend and adviser, so Saul wants to speak with him now. While Samuel was alive at Ramah, not far from Gibeah, and led the school of the prophets there, we never read of Saul going to him for counsel in his troubles. It would have been much better for him if he had. Then he treated Samuel lightly, and may have even hated him, thinking Samuel favored David. But now that Samuel is dead, Saul wants him back. “Oh, bring me up Samuel!” Many people despise God’s servants while they live, but wish for them again after they are gone, as the rich man wished for Lazarus (Luke 16:24-27). The graves of the righteous are honored, though they were often rejected while alive.

There is a strange gap in the story. Saul says, “Bring me up Samuel,” and the next words are, “When the woman saw Samuel,” (1 Samuel 28:12). We might expect the Scripture to tell us how she worked her spell, what charms she used, or what she said and did. But Scripture stays silent. That silence keeps us from wanting to know the deep things of Satan (Revelation 2:24) or from having our curiosity fed with details about evil mysteries. Some books, by describing sin too fully, teach people how to do it. Scripture hides sinful craft so that we may be simple in regard to evil (Romans 16:19).

When the woman saw the apparition, she realized her client was Saul. Her familiar spirit, likely, told her who he was, (1 Samuel 28:12). She said, in effect, “Why have you tricked me with a disguise? You are Saul, the very man I fear above all others.” In this way, she made Saul think her art was powerful, since she could see through his disguise. At the same time, she feared that he might later take revenge on her for what she was now doing.

If she had truly believed that it was Samuel she saw, she would have feared him more than Saul. Samuel was a good prophet, while Saul was only a wicked king. But most people fear the anger of earthly rulers more than the anger of the King of kings.

Saul, we may suppose, was kept at a distance in the next room. He told the woman not to be afraid, but to go on with the rite, and he asked what she saw. She said, “I see gods,” meaning a spirit rising from the earth (1 Samuel 28:13). People in those pagan nations called angels gods because they thought of them as spiritual beings. Yet what poor gods these are, if they are said to come up from the earth. She was speaking in the language of the heathen, who honored their evil spirits.

If Saul had thought he needed Samuel’s body to speak with him, he would have brought the woman to Ramah, where Samuel was buried. But the whole matter was about Samuel’s soul, and even then, if it was seen, it was expected to appear in the usual form of the body. God allowed the devil to take Samuel’s shape, so that those who would not receive the love of the truth might be given over to strong lies and believe them. It should have been plain that this could not be Samuel’s own spirit, because it was said to rise from the earth, and the spirit of a man, much more the spirit of a good man, goes upward (Ecclesiastes 3:21). But if people insist on being deceived, God may rightly say, “Let them be deceived.”

It is no surprise that the devil, by God’s permission, could act as Samuel, since he can change himself into an angel of light. Nor is it strange that he was allowed to do this here, so Saul would be driven to despair for asking counsel from the devil. Saul would not ask the Lord in the right way, so he was left to seek comfort from a lying spirit instead. When Saul heard that a spirit was coming up, he wanted to know what form it had. He was so hardened by sin that he felt no horror at it.

Saul himself was not allowed to see any form. He had to trust the woman’s description, that she saw an old man wrapped in a mantle, the kind of robe a judge would wear, which Samuel had sometimes worn. Some think she called the appearance Elohim, meaning “a god” or “gods,” because of the dignity of the figure. In Scripture, rulers are sometimes called gods in that sense (Psalm 82:1).

When Saul realized from her description that it was Samuel, he bowed with his face to the ground. This may have been a show of respect to Samuel, even though he could not see him. Or he may have bowed so he could hear the soft, muttering voice he expected to come from below, like the voices of those with familiar spirits, who peep and mutter (Isaiah 8:19). It seems he bowed himself, perhaps at the woman’s direction, so he could listen carefully to what was whispered. The voice of one with a familiar spirit was said to come out of the ground and whisper out of the dust (Isaiah 29:4). He would bow down to that, but he would not bow to the word of God.