1 Samuel 28
The episode of Saul and witch of Endor presents for us several questions. Is this really Samuel? Can this really happen? The best thing to do is take the text as it comes to us.
Saul and the army of Israel are facing the Philistines in battle. As he looks them over, he is filled with fear (5). Yet this fear does not originate with the Philistines, but with Saul’s own hypocritical heart, that is bending away from God. Wickedness in the heart begets fear (Proverbs 28:1).
Thus when Saul seeks out some word from the Lord, all that comes is silence (6).
So then Saul seeks out “the witch of Endor” - a medium (7). This is manifestly hypocritical, since he had deported all the mediums and necromancers upon Samuel’s death (3). Saul’s spiral into oblivion continues, and it should give us instruction. Whenever anyone departs from God, even the greatest in the land, it leads to sin, and that sin leads to nihilistic despair, and that despair leads to abject evil.
There is no neutral ground. Everyone is either on this death spiral or on a trajectory toward God. There is no neutral ground.
Saul requests that Samuel be “brought up” for him (11). When she actually sees Samuel, she screams (12). Perhaps this is because she didn’t expect it to work, and it never has - until now. Regardless, she sees a “god” coming up out of the earth (13). Samuel speaks woe upon Saul: that because of his unwillingness to follow God by faith and obedience, the kingdom has already been taken from him and given to David (17).
More than that, by the next day Saul and his sons would be in the grave with Samuel (19). It’s for this last prophecy that I lean toward this actually being Samuel. God seemingly makes some exception to His usual order of things and allows Samuel to cross the boundary between “Abraham’s Bosom” and this existence to speak to Saul.
Whatever the case, let us ponder two things. Saul’s sin is simple and common: the dual idolatry of the self and one’s position in life. Yet at any point, had he repented, God would have, too. The most basic fact about God in the Old Testament is that he is slow to anger (Exodus 34:6).
September 4