Law of Moses — 1 Samuel 28:7-19

Apologies for the delay in posting this lesson; we had guests this evening and the noise prevented my working on this until rather late.

The Philistines were on the warpath again, ready to humble Israel and make them pay tribute. The invaders camped in the upper Jezreel Valley. Saul led his army out to meet them, camping on the opposite side of the valley, on the slopes of Mount Gilboa late in the day before battle. Saul was nervous and inquired of the Lord. But of course, that was a waste of time, because the Lord refused to support Saul any more.

Despite having driven all the necromancers underground (sometimes translated “witch”), Saul asked his close advisers to find one. They accompanied him to Endor, a hike that took them out on the other side of the Philistine army camp. The text says that this practice was fake, referring to it as “having a familiar spirit.” It was someone who had cultivated a relationship with a demon who would come when invoked and pretend to be whomever someone sought to speak with from the dead. The demon would offer whatever lies would serve the purpose of deceiving the seeker. This was widely understood among those who were educated in the Law of Moses.

The passage also refers to a similar practice, translated often as “wizard” — someone who would use various kinds of deception, mostly a form of ventriloquism. It was a scam, plain and simple. The “wizard” would make it sound like a traditional concept of what a ghost might sound like, a soft whispering squeak, as far as we can tell. The necromancer actually used dark powers to get a demon to speak.

The necromancer would invoke the demon and could tell by the feel of things that this was the same dark presence they had felt at other times. But when Saul in disguise asked for Samuel, the woman had no chance to invoke her familiar demon. Instead, she saw rising from the grave someone quite real and not at all familiar, and not at all what she was used to. She described the spirit she saw rising, and Saul knew it was Samuel.

So the spirit of Samuel appeared and remonstrated with Saul about troubling his rest. Saul explained why he dared something forbidden by the Covenant: he was up against a massive enemy force and had no sense of assurance he could do any good. There was no sense of faith at all; Jehovah had abandoned him. Samuel reminded Saul he already knew the answer. Saul had made himself the enemy of God, and there would be help from above.

On the morrow, Saul would join Samuel in the grave, and the army of Israel would be defeated.