Where do you go for advice? When God was silent, Saul went to the witch of Endor to seek council. It would prove to be a regrettable mistake. Join Dr. Marty Baker in 1 Samuel 28 as we unpack Saul’s decision making and apply some valuable principles to our own lives.
Years ago, a woman asked me whether she could divorce her husband.
I immediately asked her, “Do you have biblical grounds?”
She replied, “What are they?”
I responded, “From my study of Scripture, I see only two: in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul allows divorce if an unbelieving mate doesn’t want to be married to a believer anymore, and in Matthew 19:9, Jesus taught divorce was viable if your mate committed adultery. Other than these two clear statements, I do not see other biblical options. I know there are other reasons why a person would desire to pursue a divorce, like abandonment, abuse, drug addiction, and so forth, but the Scripture is not clear whether those would be classified as reasons for divorce that God would support. Hence, as a pastor, I support the first two statements.”
Since her marriage situation didn’t fall within the confines of these two statements, she thanked me for the analysis, walked out of my office, and quickly surrounded herself with non-Christian female friends who held a low view of marriage and a high view of divorce.
What had this desperate saint done? She didn’t really want to know what God thought on the matter, nor was she interested in living according to the Scripture, so she purposefully surrounded herself with voices that told her what she wanted to hear. You know the drill.
- “Leave him because after five years it is apparent you are incompatible.”
- “He just isn’t romantic after seven years of marriage, and God knows a good husband is romantic.”
- “He used to talk with me all the time, and now he comes home from work, eats, surfs the net, watches a news show or two, and then heads to bed. I need someone to talk to me, so I’m sure God would approve of me finding that kind of man.”
Her complex, emotionally-charged story motivates me to ask you a personal question: When you face a desperate, messed-up personal situation, who do you, as a believer in the Lord Jesus, turn to?
Unlike David, who typically (although there were exceptions here and there) turned to God for wisdom and counsel concerning his life, King Saul lived differently in desperate times. Instead of consulting with God on how he should face various trying circumstances, he had a penchant for either counseling with his carnal self or turning to all the wrong people. As he approached the end of his life, he squared off again with yet another Philistine incursion. But this one was different, because, as we shall see, they had penetrated the heart of northern Israel, and if Saul wasn’t careful as a military strategist, he could lose the battle, land, and maybe even the nation. What would he do? Who would he talk to to secure some much-needed wisdom and insight? What he did unfolds in verses 3 through 6 of chapter 28.
Verses 1 and 2 remind us how David’s compromise of joining forces with the Philistines placed him in a precarious position as they mustered for battle under the leadership of King Achish. The story stops at this juncture, leaving us wondering: Will David come clean and defend his people, or will he actually fight them on the battlefield? We won’t discover the answer to these queries until chapter 29 because with verse 3, the inspired author turns the story back to King Saul to demonstrate yet another reason why his regal dynasty would be supplanted by David’s.
This entire historical episode, while shocking, clearly teaches us how not to react in troublesome times. With verses 3 through 6, we encounter a historical panel I classify as . . .
The Dilemma
This section begins with a bit of historical background:
3 Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had lamented him and buried him in Ramah his own city. And Saul had removed from the land those who were mediums and spiritists. 4 So the Philistines gathered together and came and camped in Shunem; and Saul gathered all Israel together and they camped in Gilboa. (1 Sam. 28)
With the death of Samuel, Saul lost the prophet, priest, and king who had initially anointed him and given him wisdom for his life path. He frequently shunned this godly counsel, but at least at the time the prophet was alive and accessible. But now Samuel was gone, leaving Saul to his own devices.
Somewhere along the line, Saul did obey the Torah and drove those who practiced the black arts from the nation.
31 ‘Do not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out to be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God. (Lev. 19)
6 ‘As for the person who turns to mediums and to spiritists, to play the harlot after them, I will also set My face against that person and will cut him off from among his people. 7 ‘You shall consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy, for I am the LORD your God. (Lev. 20)
God didn’t want His chosen, holy people connecting with the demonic realm through the black arts to defile, derail, and disorient them; therefore, He called for their immediate eradication. Saul, obviously, obeyed this mandate. But as we shall see, his purge was not completely thorough.
Armed with this background information, the author sets the tone for the passage. Philistine forces moved across the Jezreel Valley north of Jerusalem and set up an armed camp on Mount Moriah at a little town called Shunem. A few miles southeast across the fertile, green valley was Mount Gilboa. Saul’s forces secured this area as a buffer against further Philistine intrusion.
Here’s a picture of Shunem (a the foot of the hill on the left) from the cliffs on the northern rim of the Jezreel Valley due south of Nazareth. Just beyond Shunem in the distance, you can see the start of the Mount Gilboa range. Only a few miles separated these armed forces, and I’m sure the presence of the Philistines so far inland caused Saul much concern.
Speaking of Saul, how did he respond as he looked across the beautiful valley only to see thousands of crack and well-armed Philistine troops? Verse 5 tells you:
5 When Saul saw the camp of the Philistines, he was afraid and his heart trembled greatly. (1 Sam. 28)
Now for the first time in many years, he, the carnal, selfish, power-hungry, bloodthirsty man, turned to God for wisdom and counsel:
6 When Saul inquired of the LORD, the LORD did not answer him, either by dreams or by Urim or by prophets. (1 Sam. 28)
Saul tried all the usual means to get a line with God, but nothing worked. His prayers hit a brass ceiling. When he asked for a divinely coordinated dream to explain how he should respond to this threat, no Technicolor dream came. The coveted Urim and Thummin stones that the High Priest used to secure a “yes” or “no” answer from God when they glowed accordingly didn’t glow (Ex. 28:30; Num. 27:21). And no prophet stepped forward to tell the king what God thought he should do.
Suddenly, God was completely silent. Why? God will only be so patient with us when we sin. When we constantly choose our way, not His way, when we shun His Word and embrace our word, when we disregard what His godly people say to us, opting to choose an ungodly course of action, eventually God pulls back. Take, for instance, the elders who sought God in Ezekiel 20:
1 Now it came about in the seventh year, in the fifth month, on the tenth of the month, that certain of the elders of Israel came to inquire of the LORD, and sat before me. 2 And the word of the LORD came to me saying, 3 “Son of man, speak to the elders of Israel, and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Do you come to inquire of Me? As I live,” declares the Lord God, “I will not be inquired of by you.”‘ (Ezek. 20)
This was August 14, 591 B.C., or five years before the nation fell to the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The Babylonians had invaded the rebellious nation in 605 B.C., and again in 597 B.C. From what we know of this period from Kings and Chronicles, the leadership kept up its love affair with sin; hence, their question to God here wasn’t worth His time to answer, and He didn’t because the time for approaching Him in honesty and humility was over. Now was the time of judgment. It is dangerous to presume upon a holy God’s patience.
Writing years later, Solomon offered this insight into God:
24 “Because I called, and you refused; I stretched out my hand, and no one paid attention; 25 And you neglected all my counsel, and did not want my reproof;
26 I will even laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your dread comes, 27 When your dread comes like a storm, and your calamity comes on like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come on you. 28 Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently, but they shall not find me, 29 Because they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD.
30 They would not accept my counsel, they spurned all my reproof. (Prov. 1).
These verses easily describe what happened to Saul at this point in his spiritual walk. Years of shunning God caught up with him, and now, in a desperate time, God shunned him as a form of divine judgment and discipline. Note to self: far wiser to listen and obey God, to be a doer, not just a hearer of God’s Word (James 1:23-25). Are you currently shunning God’s voice in your desperate situation?
What did Saul do when God wouldn’t speak to him? He took control of the situation and did something illogical, unwarranted, and spiritually destructive.
The Departure (1 Sam. 28:7)
He turned from seeking God’s mind to seeking to find out God’s mind through a sorcerer. Unbelievable.
7 Then Saul said to his servants, “Seek for me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her.” And his servants said to him, “Behold, there is a woman who is a medium at En-dor.” (1 Sam. 28)
Isn’t this ironic? The man who supposedly removed those devoted to black arts from Israel actually asked his key men to find him a medium. This suggests he knew his purge wasn’t successful. His men also knew exactly where the medium lived. She resided in a small village a few miles northeast of Shunem on the same Hill of Moreh. Did they know her location because they had used her in the past? It’s possible, or they, at least, knew someone who knew of her and her abilities.
What does a medium do? Before we answer this, we need to ask, where did the medium do their work of contacting the dead? The Hebrew word here for medium is ov ( א֔וֹב). According to Hoffner in the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, the word from ancient times denoted a pit that sorcerers used to contact the dead. His comments are most interesting and intriguing:
The oldest references to ab, “pit,” in connection with sacrifice are to be found in the Samarian version of Gilgamesh Epic, where we learn that Gilgamesh dug a pit in the ground and out of it called forth the spirit of his dead companion Enkidu. The Akkadian version uses the expression takkap erseti (“hole in the ground”) for such a pit, and the word zaqiqu for the spirit. The entire episode reminds us of 1 Samuel 28. From the fifteenth to the end of the thirteenth centuries B.C. examples of this sort appear in the Hittite ritual. In this ritual, sacrificial pets were dug in the ground at a place which had been determined by interrogating the gods. In this pit, oblations (loaves, cheese, butter, honey mixed with milk, oil, honey, wine, beer, and sacrificial blood), expensive gifts of silver (models of the human ear, breast ornaments, a miniature ladder), and often even the sacrificial animal, were lowered into the pit. After the sacrificial animal was lowered, someone below in the pit slaughtered it. Two of the objects lowered into the pit symbolize the twofold intention of the entire procedure. The silver model of an ear indicated the wish of an offeror to “hear” and learn from the inhabitants of the underworld. The silver ladder or staircase expressed the desire that the spirit might ascend to the world above.[1]
This explains where sorcerers typically “worked.”
What did sorcerers typically do? They sought to contact the dead to obtain information (Isa. 8:19). Who do you think they are really contacting? Most likely, it is a demon who impersonates the person. Anyway, by contacting the dead who live in a transcendent realm, a person could potentially gain insight into the future. This move of Saul represented his final and tragic opposition to the living God.
How many people do this in our culture? Probably many. Here’s a sampling of what they turn to: Astrology, Tarot Cards, crystal gazing, psychometry, table tipping, automatic writing, crystals, crystal balls, horoscopes, Ouija Boards, Madame Sophia-type mediums, to name a few. Trust me, you don’t want to open yourself up to the demonic powers that stand behind these occult activities, for they will bring havoc to your life and mind. Saul, however, was facing a significant life crisis, and since God wasn’t talking to him, he unfortunately took matters into his own hands.
He, the leader against mediums, hypocritically had to disguise himself to get an audience with this unnamed woman. You know a nation is in trouble when the leaders who make the laws defy those laws and live as if they are above the law. That is the sad story of Saul.
The Deception (1 Sam. 28:8)
You know you are on the wrong path when you start using deception to cover your tracks.
8 Then Saul disguised himself by putting on other clothes, and went, he and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night; and he said, “Conjure up for me, please, and bring up for me whom I shall name to you.” (1 Sam. 28)
Why did they come by night? For one, the village of En-dor was close to the Philistine lines; therefore, nighttime provided him good cover as the king. Imagine the depths of Saul’s desperation and fear that drove him to this illogical, destructive decision. He had to travel ten miles down from Mount Gilboa, move across the small valley with stealth, hook around the Philistine lines, and arrive at En-dor. It is not shocking what sinful activity will lead you to do.
Once Saul arrived in her presence, he had but one request: “I need you to conjure up someone for me.”
The Discussion (1 Sam. 28:9-10)
Before the medium got to work contacting the deceased person Saul desired to have a conversation with, we read that she was quite astute:
9 But the woman said to him, “Behold, you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off those who are mediums and spiritists from the land. Why are you then laying a snare for my life to bring about my death?” (1 Sam. 28)
To her, the presence of these three mysterious men in the night who suddenly desired a conjuring with a specific dead person smelled of a sting operation. Since Saul had killed many of her black arts friends, she didn’t want to become another stat in the king’s palace. No, she wanted to live and be a medium on another day, so she posed a logical question: “Why are you then laying a snare for my life to bring about my death?” Put differently, are you attempting to trick me and get me killed?
The medium’s sensitivity to the Word of God concerning the black arts and the king’s implementation of that divine concern should have awakened Saul. He should have said, “Oh yeah. What am I thinking? What am I, the one who sought to rid the land of Israel of mediums, doing here talking to this woman in the middle of the night?” None of those thoughts, however, crossed his closed mind. He wanted what he wanted, and he didn’t care how he got it, even if that involved breaking the law of Moses by using a medium to contact the dead.
Listen to how emotionally charged his response was to the medium:
10 And Saul vowed to her by the LORD, saying, “As the LORD lives, there shall no punishment come upon you for this thing.” (1 Sam. 28)
Are you serious? He used the LORD’s holy name to validate his request to do something the LORD completely opposed. Don’t tell me sin does not distort your thinking, moving you to call good, evil, and evil, good.
Armed with this reassurance from this mystery man, the medium did her thing:
The Delivery (1 Sam. 28:11-14)
She began with the logical question:
11 Then the woman said, “Whom shall I bring up for you?” (1 Sam. 28)
Who did this particular client want to speak with?
And he said, “Bring up Samuel for me.” (1 Sam. 28)
He wanted to speak with whom? Samuel, the former prophet-priest-king of Israel, a man who most certainly opposed any and all mediums. “Bring up” speaks of bringing the deceased person from the realm of the dead up to the realm of the living.
We don’t know exactly what the medium did by means of incantations, esoteric chants, or the like to contact the dead, but in short order, she obtained real, knee-knocking results:
12 When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice; and the woman spoke to Saul, saying, “Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul.” (1 Sam. 28)
Instantly, something happened that she had never seen before. The real deceased person appeared! The text says she saw Samuel, he dressed like Samuel (v. 14), and later he spoke the prophetic Word of God just like Samuel. No wonder the woman became frozen in fear! She not only stood in the presence of Samuel, but she also realized that only King Saul would make a crazy request like this.
Obviously, Saul couldn’t see what she saw in the darkness, so he said:
13 And the king said to her, “Do not be afraid; but what do you see?” And the woman said to Saul, “I see a divine being coming up out of the earth.” (1 Sam. 28)
WTT 1 Samuel 28:13 וַיֹּ֙אמֶר לָ֥הּ הַמֶּ֛לֶךְ אַל־תִּֽירְאִ֖י כִּ֣י מָ֣ה רָאִ֑ית וַתֹּ֤אמֶר הָֽאִשָּׁה֙ אֶל־שָׁא֔וּל אֱלֹהִ֥ים רָאִ֖יתִי עֹלִ֥ים מִן־הָאָֽרֶץ׃
Suddenly, an opening between the earthly and heavenly dimensions opened, and she saw a celestial figure moving up toward her. She called the person a “divine being,” which is what the word Elohim means. The word, however, can also denote a being who is not God, but is not from this world. It can denote a theophanic angel (Ex. 14:19; Jud. 6:20; 13:6, who is probably the preincarnate Christ, and, therefore, God), or even a demonic being posing as a god (Deut. 32:17). The famous Hebrew scholars Keil and Delitzsch offer this appraisal of this pivotal word:
Elohim does not signify gods here, nor yet God; still less an angel or a ghost, or even a person of superior rank, but a celestial (super-terrestrial), heavenly, or spiritual being.[2]
The arrival of this particular real figure from the underworld did not fit into her witchcraft paradigm, for this being looked altogether different from the demonic beings she typically conjured up. Her word choice, therefore, attempted to state that something highly unusual was occurring.
Still unable to see what the medium saw, Saul’s curiosity got the best of him, so he just had to pose a question:
14 And he said to her, “What is his form?” (1 Sam. 28)
The Hebrew for “form” is toar (תֹּ֫אַר), and it describes the outline or form of something or someone. Hence, in the OT it is employed to describe the form of a beautiful woman (Gen. 29:17; Esther 2:7), or how Joseph was a handsome man (Gen. 39:6). Obviously, in the next life you have a definite form, a body as it were. This particular form, or outline of a man, turned out to be Samuel.
14 And she said, “An old man is coming up, and he is wrapped with a robe.” (1 Sam. 28)
The presence of an old man wrapped in a robe had to be Samuel, the very man Saul wished to speak to. The presence of the robe was not a good sign for Saul because it was this robe he had torn in anger when God removed the kingdom from him (1 Sam. 15:27-28).
Finally, realizing that Samuel actually stood directly before him, Saul bowed in probably a mixture of fear and reverence:
14 And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground and did homage (1 Sam. 28)
It is strange that now Saul showed reverence for the prophet of God. He had spent most of his regal career blowing the prophet . . . and God . . . off to push his selfish agenda.
The arrival of Samuel from the afterlife leads to a question: Did the witch use her powers to bring Samuel from God’s dimension to ours? No. God intervened and permitted Samuel to materialize for a moment. Why? God wanted Samuel to drive home the divine message the prophet had spoken to Israel’s first king after repeated acts of disobedience. That word was not one of hope, but doom. All of this is so utterly ironic. Samuel likened Saul’s earlier rebellion against God and His Word unto divination (i.e., sorcery; 1Sam. 15:23). Now, a diviner is the divine tool to remind the disobedient king of the judgment that awaits him from God.
The Doom (1 Sam. 28:15-19)
Samuel was far from cordial to Saul:
15 Then Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?”
Or in other words, “I was enjoying the wonder of God’s heavenly domain, and you saw fit to have me brought into your presence for a conversation? Why? What now?”
Saul’s answer is pitiful:
And Saul answered, “I am greatly distressed; for the Philistines are waging war against me, and God has departed from me and answers me no more, either through prophets or by dreams; therefore I have called you, that you may make known to me what I should do.”
His words are a joke. What he said to Samuel, whom he disobeyed many times, was this: “Say, could you not pay attention to this medium, and could you overlook the fact I’ve hunted David down like a dog, and all of this has pulled me away from keeping an eye on the Philistines? Could you do this for me so you can tell me what to do with this new Philistine incursion?”
Samuel didn’t take the bait but lowered the boom, again:
16 And Samuel said, “Why then do you ask me, since the LORD has departed from you and has become your adversary? 17 And the LORD has done accordingly as He spoke through me; for the LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor, to David. 18 As you did not obey the LORD and did not execute His fierce wrath on Amalek, so the LORD has done this thing to you this day. 19 Moreover the LORD will also give over Israel along with you into the hands of the Philistines, therefore tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. Indeed the LORD will give over the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines! (1 Sam. 28)
God’s word of judgment against the sinful king hadn’t changed. But Samuel did add one more word of precise prophecy: within 24 hours, Saul and his sons would join Samuel in the afterlife, and his army would be decimated in battle. Repeated acts of sin moved God to remove Saul. Writing years later, the Chronicler sums up the reasons for Saul’s death on the battlefield:
13 So Saul died for his trespass which he committed against the LORD, because of the word of the LORD which he did not keep; and also because he asked counsel of a medium, making inquiry of it, . . . (1 Chron. 10)
Yes, there is a limit to the sin God will tolerate in the life of a saint, and Saul reached that limit when he chose to talk to the medium instead of God.
How did Saul respond to Samuel’s precise prophetic utterance from his transdimensional abode?
The Decimation (1 Sam. 28:20)
Samuel’s words caused fear to flood into Saul’s soul:
20 Then Saul immediately fell full length upon the ground and was very afraid because of the words of Samuel; also there was no strength in him, for he had eaten no food all day and all night. (1 Sam. 28)
Why does the author tell us that Saul hadn’t eaten? Mediums in the day typically told their clients to forgo food to prepare them for a successful conjuring. This weakened state, therefore, heightened the fear factor of his impending death within 24 hours. Words like this from a proven prophetic source would have been sobering for anyone to hear, and Saul was no exception. His days of disobedience to God were about to be over.
At this juncture, the story heads in an unexpected direction.
The Diversion (1 Sam. 28:21-25)
In this interchange between the medium and Saul, it is apparent she wasn’t just seeking to get some food in his belly so he’d feel so much better; she attempted to get him not to be consumed with what the prophet of God had just prophetically uttered. It’s as if she said, “Here, Saul, eat this physical food, and don’t pay too much attention to the spiritual food you just received.” Such are the ways of the Devil. He and his servants are masters of diversion.
21 And the woman came to Saul and saw that he was terrified, and said to him, “Behold, your maidservant has obeyed you, and I have taken my life in my hand, and have listened to your words which you spoke to me. 22 “So now also, please listen to the voice of your maidservant, and let me set a piece of bread before you that you may eat and have strength when you go on your way.” 23 But he refused and said, “I will not eat.” However, his servants together with the woman urged him, and he listened to them. So he arose from the ground and sat on the bed. 24 And the woman had a fattened calf in the house, and she quickly slaughtered it; and she took flour, kneaded it, and baked unleavened bread from it. 25 And she brought it before Saul and his servants, and they ate. Then they arose and went away that night. (1 Sam. 28)
All of this is so interesting. Years earlier, Samuel invited Saul to enjoy a meal in preparation for his anointing as Israel’s first king; however, Saul’s last supper, which underscores the end of his dynasty, was served by a wealthy sorceress. Amazing. How far he had fallen simply because he repeatedly failed to turn to God, choosing instead to follow his sinful desires. From this entire sad and sordid story, one overarching truth readily emerges, and it’s a truth that certainly transcends time:
When you’re in a desperate situation, don’t look downward, but upward.
Is your life falling apart because of the sinful choices you’ve made? Are you currently living in a state of utter desperation because the Philistines have invaded your life? Who have you turned to for wisdom and counsel? Have you dialed up a psychic hotline because you need some quick insight? Has superstition got the best of you to move you to consult the black arts for some much-needed direction in your unraveling life? If you’ve turned to anyone or anything other than the Lord, like Saul did, I think you know now what you need to do. The Lord is waiting to hear from you, so turn to Him. He will hear. He will act. He will deliver. This is how He responds when His children humble themselves:
14 and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (2 Chron. 7).
He will heal your life by driving out the Philistines.
[1] Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren, eds, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, Vol. 1:131-132.
[2] Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 2 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), 542–543.
