The Witch - 1st Samuel 28

We know that David was living among the Philistines for about 16 months, and that at some point, the Philistines started to prepare for war against Israel. The king of Gath came to David and asked is David and his men would fight with him against Israel. This is a tough spot for David because Israel is his home and his people, but he was living with the Philistines to stay alive. David’s answer is, “Surely thou shalt know what thy servant can do.” I have no idea what that means, but TB says that it’s the ultimate politician answer because it means exactly what anyone wants it to mean. The king was so moved that he made David his personal body guard “forever.”

On the other hand, Saul knows that he’s in trouble because the Philistines gathered against Israel and Israel gathered against the Philistines. He desperately wants comfort and an assurance that Israel will prevail here, but he’s so spiritual dead that he can’t get an answer from God “neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.” What caught my attention in this statement was that the Urim and Thummim didn’t work for him to get answers. When I was talking about it before, I wondered if the high priest just pulled a stone out of the pocket and that was the answer, but here it says that Saul couldn’t get an answer from it. If it’s possible to get no answer from drawing a stone out of the pocket, then that means that there is a lot more to it than just simply yes/no depending which stone comes out. Samuel had been Saul’s prophet most of his time, but Samuel had died earlier and so Saul was lost.

Interestingly, for some reason, Saul had gotten rid of all “those that had a familiar spirit, and the wizards out of the land.” So all the witches, wizards, necromancers, mediums, psychics, they were all either driven out of the land, killed, or had to give up their lifestyle. But Saul was so desperate, he told his servants to find him a witch, and they told him of one they knew of so he disguised himself and went to her and asked her to bring up a spirit of the dead for him. She’s wary, maybe because Saul wasn’t that good at disguising himself, maybe because she’s just being cautious. He swears by “Adonai” or by “God” that she won’t be punished, why bring up God when doing wickedly is my question. Interestingly he didn’t ask her to answer the question that he had herself, but instead her asks her to bring up the spirit of Samuel.

Suddenly, the woman sees “Samuel” and she “cried with a loud voice,” which indicates to me that something was happening that she wasn’t expecting. Maybe she usually fakes this, maybe this isn’t how Satan usually communicates with her, either way, she sees “Samuel” and is shocked and scared. I assume that the spirit told her that the man was Saul and she was angry with him, he tells her not to be afraid but to tell him what she sees. She says that she sees “an old man… covered with a mantle.” Saul “perceives” that this is Samuel and bows himself. The phrase “an old man” in verse 14 is cross-referenced saying, “This cannot be a bona fide vision from God, brought about by a spiritualist medium. Its effect was to destroy all hope.” We’ll get into it later why this can’t be an actual vision of Samuel.

The spirit asks what Saul wants, and Saul says that he’s deeply distressed about the impending war with the Philistines, “and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more,” and asks what he should do. Samuel reminds Saul that God had departed from Saul and had become his enemy, and taken the kingdom out of his hands and given it to David. It’s interesting because this is exactly what Satan tells us today, that God has abandoned us and that we are his enemy. The spirit continues that God left him because Saul was disobedient and didn’t take care of the Amalekites. All these things that Satan is saying is true, that’s how he establishes his legitimacy, by being truthful many times and lying sometimes too. It’s true that Saul lost God’s favor and the kingdom because of disobedience and that the kingdom now belonged to David. Maybe it was too late for Saul to repent in this life, I’m not sure and I don’t think Satan is sure about that either, but he says all this anyway. Additionally, the spirit says that the next day Saul and his sons were going to be killed in battle and that the Philistines would defeat Israel.

How are we certain that this really wasn’t Samuel’s ghost recalled from the dead by this witch to talk to Saul? Because this is not the way that God speaks to anyone. God expressly forbid this behavior, why then would he break his own law to communicate this way when he could have just used one of the ways that Saul already tried. The IM says, “If the Lord desired to impart this information to Saul, why did he not respond when Saul enquired of him through the legitimate channels of divine communication? Saul had tried them all and failed to obtain an answer. Why should the Lord ignore the means he himself established, and send Samuel, a prophet, to reveal himself to Saul through a forbidden source? Why should he employ one who had a familiar spirit for this purpose, a medium which he had positively condemned by this own law?” Plus, the dead aren’t just at our beck and call to appear to us from the other side of the veil whenever we feel like it. The IM says, “Pitiable indeed would be the condition of spirits in paradise if they were under any such control. They would not be at rest, nor be able to enjoy that liberty from the troubles and labors of earthly life which is essential to their happiness, but be in a condition of bondage, subject to the will and whims of persons who know not God and whose lives and aims are of the earth, earthy.”

Why would Satan say tell Saul that he was going to die the next day as well as his sons? The options were he could say that God would deliver Israel from the vastly superior military strength of the Philistines, or he could say that they were going to lose. I think it’s important to note here that Satan did not know what the outcome was going to be. God had delivered Israel out of worse circumstances than this under worse leadership. If Satan had the spirit say that God would deliver them, they would be happy and hopeful, maybe fight better, had more morale, and then if they won, the God would get the glory. If they lost then some might feel betrayed by God, but this had happened a couple of times before, the people went to war thinking that they were blessed by God and then they were defeated for various reasons, and the people usually ended up repenting and Satan didn’t want that. But if Satan said that they were going to be defeated, that might have become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Expecting defeat usually results in defeat and if God really wasn’t with them, just statistically the Philistines were most likely going to win and then kill Saul and his sons like everybody did with all defeated royalty at the time. Satan loves death and destruction, he loves hate and despair, and he’s delivering it up to Saul on a silver platter here. So either God miraculously delivers this king who he has stopped talking to, or they are defeated, Satan doesn’t know but he’s hedging his bets and making people as miserable as possible in whatever capacity that he can.

But the “prophecy” was fulfilled, doesn’t that indicate that it really came from God, because Satan doesn’t know the future? No. I would imagine that Satan ha a lot of experience, he probably knew what the Philistines’ plans were, as he was probably in their camp listening to their strategies too. He probably knew they were planning to attack the next day, so he said that to appear accurate and to destroy all hope Saul and his people had. He also probably observed that God had stopped being with Saul and deduced that Israel was not going to be delivered and knowing what happens to royalty after a defeat, it was very likely that everyone in that room, hearing that “prophecy” was going to be dead by the next evening. These are excellent guesses, he was right. Maybe God put a little nudge in there the way Satan said because that was his intention anyway, but who knows, that doesn’t change the fact that this had nothing to do with God at all and was all Satan.

But if Satan had deduced all this, why did he tell Saul the truth? Why did he tell Saul that God abandoned him because of his disobedience? One reason might be because he knew that Samuel would say that and he was trying to stay in character. Another reason might be because that’s his favorite tactic, to tell us that God abandoned us because we are bad and that there’s no going back. He loves that one, he says it to me all the time. The IM brings up another reason why Satan might tell the truth in these encounters, because if these witches and necromancers were never accurate then no one would believe them and Satan wants to sow as much discord away from God as possible so he has to make them at least kind of accurate so people would believe in their legitimacy. Additionally, the IM says, “If the devil never told the truth he would not be able to deceive mankind by his falsehoods. The powers of darkness would never prevail without the use of some light. A little truth mixed with plausible error is one of the means by which they lead mankind astray. There is nothing, then, in the history of the interview between Saul and the woman of Endor which, rationally or doctrinally, establishes the opinion that she was a prophetess of the Lord of that Samuel actually appeared on that occasion.”

Saul doesn’t take this news very well. Surely he still thought that God was going to deliver him even though he was not being obedient. I think we are all like this sometimes, want the blessings without the obedience. But I think a lot of us, me for sure, take this too far. For me, I’m doing my absolute best every day to be obedient, but I feel like God won’t deliver me because I’m still not perfect. I think it’s the other end of the extreme and definitely a lie that Satan is telling me. A lot of times I feel disconnected to God because I don’t feel happy all the time or because I lose my temper and get angry or because I’m frustrated. I think for me, the problem isn’t that I want the blessings even though I refuse to repent, the problem is that I don’t think I’m good enough to receive the blessings or deliverance or the teachings or whatever, even though I’m doing everything that I can. That’s the opposite end of that spectrum and it’s just as devastating spiritually because what if the blessings show up? Will I recognize them? Will I accept them? Will I let them distract me from growing spiritually? Those are the questions. This is an interesting concept I hadn’t considered before. I’m going to have to think about this.

Saul falls on the ground and refuses to leave and eventually the witch makes a huge feast, kind of a last meal type of thing and then they finally left that night.