1 Samuel 28 - Introduction

XXVIII.

(1 Samuel 28:1) The Philistines Invade the Land with a great Force — Saul’s Fear — His Secret Visit to the Witch of En-dor, to Consult the Shade of Samuel.

EXCURSUS L: ON WHAT HAPPENED AT EN-DOR? (1 Samuel 28).

In all times the question taken as the title of this Excursus has excited deep interest — What happened at En-dor? We will divide our general question into three parts.

(1) Did Samuel, the prophet of the Lord, really appear? and if so, what power brought him up from the realm of departed spirits?
(2) Granting that something did appear and speak, can we assume that the appearance was not Samuel, but a demon or evil spirit assuming Samuel’s name?

(3) Is it possible that there was no appearance at all, and that the whole scene was a well-played piece of jugglery on the part of the woman? or, in other words, that the whole scene was merely a delusion produced by the woman, without any background at all.
On the last (No. 3), which assumes the whole scene at En-dor to have been a piece of jugglery on the part of the woman, we may observe that it is an hypothesis adopted by some great names, apparently by the illustrious Jewish commentator, Maimonides, who wrote in the twelfth century after Christ; by the majority of the less orthodox modern writers from the seventeenth century downwards, and even by such true divines and scholars as Dean Payne Smith It is, however, a purely modern hypothesis, and receives no support from the early Church writers. Dean Payne Smith admirably puts forth the best arguments employed by the defenders of this supposition in these word: “We cannot believe that the Bible would set before us an instance of witchcraft employed by the Divine sanction for holy purposes; but we can clearly believe that the woman would gladly take a bitter revenge on the man who had cruelly put to death all persons reported to have such powers as those to which she laid claim.... She reproached him for these crimes, announced to him what now all were convinced of, that David was to be his successor, and foretold his defeat and death.” — Dean Payne Smith, in Pulpit Commentary on 1 Samuel 28:17. No. 2 assumes that there was an apparition, but that what appeared was not Samuel, but an evil spirit, which showed itself in the character of Samuel. Not a few of the fathers, with the great Protestant reformers, such as Luther and Calvin, have preferred this view. Ephrem Syrus explains the phenomenon by stating that “an apparent image of Samuel was presented to the eye of Saul through demoniacal arts.” Luther plainly writes: “The raising of Samuel by a soothsayer, or witch, in 1 Samuel 28:11, was certainly merely a spectre of the devil... for who could believe that the souls of believers which are in the hand of God (Ecclesiastes 3:1), and in the bosom of Abraham (Luke 16:23), were under the power of the devil and of simple men?” — Luther, Abuses of the Mass, 1522. Calvin similarly tells us: “It is certain that it was not really Samuel, for God would never have allowed His prophets to be subject to such diabolical conjuring. For here is a sorceress calling up the dead from the grave.” — Calvin, Horn. 100, in 1 Sam. No. 1 still remains. Did the spirit of Samuel the prophet himself really appear in the witch of En-dor’s house to Saul? Now, without doubt, the ordinary reader would so understand the history. Everything before and after the incident is simple and natural. The woman herself is appalled at the sight, whatever it was, and describes it as resembling the dead seer. Whether or not Saul saw the spectre is uncertain, but he certainly heard the voice, which spoke a too true and mournful prophecy: nothing fierce or vindictive, as we have noticed in our comments on the scene — rather the contrary. The words, so simple and gentle, and yet unutterably sad, were no mere words of a juggling old woman; still less were they the utterances of an evil or malicious spirit.

We thus confess our full belief that the shade of Samuel was seen by the woman (perhaps by Saul; but this is uncertain from the narrative), and that his voice was certainly heard by King Saul; and this has been the common belief in all times. Bishop Wordsworth’s note here is most learned and exhaustive, and he fully endorses this view (here styled No. 1). The bishop marshals an array of witnesses who support this, which I venture to call the plain, common sense interpretation of the history. He begins with the ancient Hebrew Church, and quotes Sir. 46:20. The writer of that book evidently believed that Samuel himself appeared; and so did the LXX., who plainly express the belief in their addendum to the Hebrew text at 1 Chronicles 10:13. Josephus affirms the same in Antt. vi., 14, 2. Among the early Christian fathers, Justin Martyr, Trypho, § 105; Origen, tom. II., 490-495; St. Ambrose in Luc, 1 Samuel 1; St. Basil, Ep. 80; St. Gregory Naz., Orat. III.; Theodoret, Qu. 63, hold the same belief that the shade of Samuel appeared at En-dor and spoke to Saul. Among the famous mediæval writers holding the same view, we may instance Cajetan, Lyra, and à Lapide; later, Waterland may be added to the list; in our own days, Bishop Hervey, in the Speaker’s Commentary, and Bishop Wordsworth and the German writers, O. von Gerlach and Keil. Assuming, then, that the soul of Samuel did appear on earth that night at En-dor, we have still to deal with the question: By what power was he brought up from the realm of departed spirits? Here the narrative if carefully read, will supply us with the correct answer. Far from having herself, by any incautstion she had used, brought Samuel back again to earth, the witch is represented as crying with a loud voice from very terror when the shade of the prophet appeared, so little apparently was she prepared for what she saw. We may, therefore, with Theodoret, dismiss the idea as unholy, and even impious, that the witch of En-dor, by any power or incantation of which she was mistress, conjured up the prophet Samuel; and we may affirm with considerable certainty that it was by the special command of God that he came that night to speak with King Saul at En-dor. Keil and Bishops Hervey and Wordsworth all agree in the main with this theory.

The above conclusions respecting the reality of the circumstance detailed in this remarkable episode in the history of Saul being, as we have seen, in strict harmony with the judgment of the ancient Hebrew Church (comp. the passage referred to above from Sir. 46:20; the LXX. addition to 1 Chronicles 10:13; Jos. Antt. vi. 14, § 2, besides the general sense of the more mysterious comments in the Talmud), are a most important contribution to our knowledge of the ancient Hebrew teaching concerning the state of the soul after death in the earliest Prophetic Schools, as early as the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon.

We gather, then, that these old Hebrews held that after death the soul continued in a state of self-conscious existence; that it was capable of feeling and expressing grief and sorrow; that it retained the memory of transactions in which it had taken part when on earth; that it was — at least, in the case of a servant of God like Samuel — in a state of rest, from which it evidently had no wish to be summoned to share again in the fret and fever of this life — “Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up?”

Of the abode of the souls of the departed we can gather but little from this passage. It was evidently not Heaven — the Heaven where is the throne of God, and where dwell the heavenly powers. The language used, though popular, and adapted to the ordinary conception of Sheol, or Hades, the unseen place or lodging of the disembodied souls of men, clearly distinguishes between the abode of souls like Samuel and the abode of the heavenly powers. Throughout the history the soul of Samuel is represented as coming up, instead of coming down or descending, which would be the popular language used of an angel of God.

The testimony which this history gives to the ancient Jewish belief in the existence of the soul after death fully accounts for the prominence which the compiler of the book has given to this episode. It is, besides, an important contribution to our knowledge of the complex character of the first great Hebrew monarch, so splendidly endowed by God, tried, and, alas! found wanting. The En-dor incident, besides, clearly and incisively gives us God’s judgment on necromancy, and generally on all attempts to hold converse with the souls of the departed.
In every age these attempts have had an extraordinary fascination for men. In our own day necromancy, unfortunately, is not a lost art among ourselves. Men and women of education, as Dr. Fraser well observes in the Pulpit Commentary, are not ashamed or afraid to practise arts and consult “mediums” that are referred to in the Old Testament as abhorrent to God, and utterly forbidden to His people.

“How pure in heart and sound in head,
With what Divine affection bold,
Should be the man whose thought would hold,
An hour’s communion with the dead.
“In vain shalt thou on any call
The spirits from their golden day,
Except, like them, thou too canst say,
My spirit is at peace with all.
“They haunt the silence of the breast,
Imaginations calm and fair,
The memory like a cloudless air,
The conscience as a sea at rest.” — TENNYSON.