Original Meaning
Renewed War with the Philistines (28:1–2)
FOR ACHISH, RENEWED HOSTILITIES WITH ISRAEL present a test of David’s loyalty to his new Philistine allies.3 But for the narrator, the situation presents a dilemma for the anointed one, who has been guided and protected by God until now. David is now in an impossible situation. Achish joins his fellow Philistine overlords in mustering their forces against Israel’s heartland (namely, Aphek, cf. 29:1), and it is time for David to “fish or cut bait.” If he refuses Achish, he belies his true loyalty to his native Israel and makes an enemy of Achish more dangerous than Saul. But to fight against his own people, whom he is anointed to rule, is equally impossible.
David’s response seems carefully crafted to be noncommittal, though it satisfies Achish. The Philistine ruler is remarkably trusting, even naïve. Perhaps his affection for David has dimmed his memory of the younger shepherd boy who once decapitated another Philistine from Gath (ch. 17).4 David’s dilemma is suspended until chapter 29, where it reaches resolution. For now, the narrator switches to the other anointed one, Saul, in order to relate the nadir in his tragic downfall.
Circumstances of Saul’s Final Humiliation (28:3–6)
Bridging Contexts
WHERE TO TURN IN A CRISIS. During the darkest days of David’s exile, when Saul had turned all his energies to the sole task of killing him, David sought help wherever he could find it. As we noted in our comments on chapter 21, you can learn a lot about a person by seeing where he or she turns in a time of trouble. David turned first to Samuel (while he was still alive) at his hometown, Ramah (19:18–24). When it became obvious the prophets at Ramah could not protect David indefinitely, he fled back to Gibeah to seek the help and advice of his good friend Jonathan (20:1–42). Finally, convinced he could not secure reconciliation with Saul and being in need of arms and shelter, David went to Ahimelech the priest at Nob (21:1–9). In his greatest hour of need, David returned to the sources of his childhood faith and was reminded that Yahweh had always been his help.
This text obviously tells us a lot about Saul by relating where he turned in his darkest hour. The historian’s contrast between Saul and David thus builds to a climax in these closing chapters of 1 Samuel. Saul’s nocturnal trip to Endor marks his final departure from faith in Yahweh, from the faith that Samuel had stood for in life. Now in death, as in life, Samuel proclaims once again the judgment of the Lord against Saul. This episode along with the report of Saul’s ignoble death at Mount Gilboa (ch. 31) marks the final events in the fall of the king.
As David ascends to new heights, Saul is stooping to new lows. In 2 Samuel, Saul’s descendants gradually disappear until the only remaining trace is the pitiable Mephibosheth, who is graciously sustained at David’s table (2 Sam. 9:13). The Chronicler’s brief treatment of Saul cites this event as evidence that Saul deserved the punishment that befell him (1 Chron. 10:13–14): “Saul died because he was unfaithful to the LORD; he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance, and did not inquire of the LORD. So the LORD put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse.”
Magic arts and prophecy. The Old Testament preserves vestiges of necromancy in other texts, indicating that necromancy continued to be a temptation for the Israelites for centuries.30 According to the Pentateuch, official Yahwism condemned cults of the dead (Lev. 19:26–32; 20:6, 27; Deut. 14:1; 18:9–11; 26:14). But several references in the historical books imply that individual Israelites continued to succumb to the idea that such practices were beneficial. David’s vigil over the imminent death of his son seems to engage in a ritual descent to the underworld (2 Sam. 12:15–24). David’s son Absalom apparently engaged in some sort of cult of the dead in a funerary ritual for his deceased sons (14:27; 18:18). The story of the bones of Elisha reviving a dead man may well reflect the belief, known also from Mesopotamian texts, that the bones of the deceased could be utilized for curative purposes (2 Kings 13:20–21). The biblical authors condemned Manasseh’s evil as including consultation with mediums (21:6), and Josiah’s reform specifically targeted forms of divination, including necromancy (23:24).
Israel’s ban on magic was a unique characteristic of the nation’s overarching worldview. All other nations in the ancient Near East believed in and practiced a wide variety of magical arts. They believed formulaic recitations and imitative acts could manipulate and exploit the powers of the deities and thereby procure benefits for themselves that were otherwise impossible. By implication, the gods were viewed as subservient to supernatural forces beyond their control. Israel’s monotheism and concepts of the transcendence and sovereignty of Yahweh made such views an impossibility. The Creator God is not subservient to any manner of supernatural force beyond his control and cannot be manipulated under any circumstances. Israel’s theology simply made the use of magic forbidden.
Significantly, however, the Old Testament’s ban on magic is not based on the assertion that magic is ineffective. On the contrary, magic is banned precisely because it does work. As monotheists, the biblical authors did not believe magic was connected to other gods but depended on self-operating forces. They attributed a reality to magical power that was independent of the gods, though they seldom attempted a more specific definition of that power. Magic, therefore, was tantamount to human rebellion that unlocked divine secrets, making humanity equal with God.31
Two issues, therefore, help bring this passage into our century: magic and prophecy. Saul turns to the illegitimate use of magic as a means of seeking guidance while closing his eyes to the prophetic word. The result, ironically, is that the magic he uses actually confirms the prophetic word he has scorned. Samuel’s speech (28:16–19) makes this clear. The prophecies about Saul and David have been fulfilled, and these cannot be rescinded or ignored; they are only confirmed by Saul’s use of necromancy.
Thus, these closing chapters of 1 Samuel illustrate who can suitably serve as the anointed one. David, the legitimate anointed one, turns to Yahweh for guidance, either through the officially approved means of priestly ephod with its Urim and Thummim (22:10, 13, 15; 23:1–6; 30:8; 2 Sam. 2:1; 5:19, 23; 16:23) or through rational dependence on Yahweh’s guiding spirit (1 Sam. 27). By contrast, Saul has driven the priestly ephod away from his service because of his maniacal preoccupation with killing David and must now turn to magic to seek guidance. Magic and prophecy are related to each other as opposite sides of the same coin. They are mutually exclusive, and the anointed of Yahweh must choose between them. The use of magic will bring prophetic condemnation, while reliance on the prophetic word will result in the expulsion of magic from the land. In either case, the question is how one relates to the Lord and whether one will allow the Lord to direct one’s paths.
Contemporary Significance
Contemporary Significance
CONTEMPORARY INTEREST IN MAGIC. There are certain obvious ways in which we can relate this text to our contemporary setting. Not many years ago, the practice of magic and participation in the occult were rare in North American society and were definitely seen as emanating from the fringes of society. All of that has changed with the rise of postmodernism and especially in the emphases of the New Age movement. A positive side of postmodernism is a renewed hunger and desire to experience the supernatural. But wherever Christianity has been slow or unprepared to meet the need, the New Age movement has rushed in to fill the gap with beliefs in channeling, crystals, horoscopes, paranormal psychology, and reincarnation.
Saul in this text represents a paradigm of the individual who turns away from legitimate sources of relating to God and relies instead on illicit ways of manipulating God through magic. In many ways, this relates to the way New Agers offer our culture an array of services to assist people in their search for the supernatural as a means of self-fulfillment. The church needs to be consistent in condemning all uses of magic as tools for manipulating God and other less obvious strands, such as those put forward by the New Age movement.
Subtle magic. But there are more subtle ways in which this text applies. It would be simplistic for us to limit the application of this text to blatant heretical practices such as the occult and magical incantations. Rather, we should also consider how easy it is to use good things in a magical way in an attempt to manipulate God. For example, consider the magical use of prayer, church attendance, and tithing among modern believers. Saul’s reliance on a nonbiblical worldview needs to be applied to such cases in which perfunctory observance of the standard means of grace can come to represent the means by which we exact God’s good favor. In other words, some believers come to expect good things from God, even believe that God owes them something, because they (we!) have fulfilled certain obligations. One’s relationship with God can be quickly reduced to a sort of previously arranged agreement, a sort of quid pro quo, in which all we have to do is keep our end of the bargain and God will be forced to keep his.
I once served for a period of time as an intern chaplain in a prison while I was in training for ministry. One day I met Mr. Smith (not his real name). He was in prison for embezzlement, was serving a light term, and was expecting to be released soon. In one of our sessions, Mr. Smith began explaining how God would eventually bring him great success in his business ventures; in fact, he said God owed him success. When I tried delicately to ask about the particulars of that assumption, Mr. Smith acted surprised that I did not follow his logic. You see, God owed him success in business because he, Mr. Smith, had been so faithful to return a tithe of his profits to the church. He even quoted Scripture to prove his point (Luke 6:38): “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.” When I tried to suggest that this may be a misapplication of that verse and that, in fact, the Bible has other things to say about stewardship and our responsibilities in the world, Mr. Smith simply refused to listen to me. After all, I was only a young seminary student.
Later in my ministry, I realized Mr. Smith is no exception. In fact, his views on the use of money are in many ways symptomatic of other believers I have known, though his unmitigated avarice and unsophisticated hermeneutic made it easier to explain how he could arrive at such conclusions. What I have found more frustrating and less explainable is how believers who seem mature in every other respect and who have been actively involved in the life of the church for many years develop similar assumptions.
Indeed, many Christians today in the North American context implicitly view church attendance as a sort of deposit in their spiritual account. It is an investment they believe will pay benefits in the future. So with Bible reading, or tithing, or befriending the unchurched, or visiting shut-ins—all become a means to an end instead of a means of expressing our love for, adoration of, and thanks to God. Church attendance in such a view is transformed from a regular custom of worship to a means of ingratiating ourselves to God, a way of purchasing God’s favor. Such abuses of the means of grace are just as misguided as Saul’s trip to Endor.
Capitalizing on our faith. Another way in which to apply this text is to stress the inconsistency in Saul’s actions. Our Bridging Contexts section emphasized the two options available to Saul for divine communion: magic and prophecy. They are mutually exclusive, representing competing worldviews. Saul had rightly banned all mediums and spiritists from his kingdom (28:3), but he had not replaced them by nurturing and supporting the proper replacements for such mediums.
In other words, Saul had not fostered a close relationship with the legitimate means of divine communication, the prophets and priests of Yahweh, who should naturally have filled the void left by the departure of the mediums and spiritists. In fact, in Saul’s irrational pursuit of David, he had killed the majority of the priests and marginalized the prophets (cf. 22:6–23; 19:18–24). When the Philistine crisis came, Saul was unprepared because he had not consistently nurtured his relationship with God. He had not replaced the magicians with prophets. The trip to Endor reveals that he had not replaced his own personal reliance on magicians with a vital relationship with God.
One astute theologian who can help us understand this is Helmut Thielicke, who was forced to hammer out his theology on the anvil of Hitler’s Third Reich. Plagued by the realization that many of Germany’s Christians had accepted and even defended Nazism’s racial lies, Thielicke later explored theology’s “polar structure.”32 He contended that one pole of theology stems from “a superior, eternal basis derived from revelation,” while the other stems from “specific constellations of the spirit of the age.” As a result, Christian faith “believes against as well as in,” because it will always involve opposition to the Zeitgeist, or the spirit of the age. Using Saul as the example, we could argue that it is not enough to believe against (as Saul banned the mediums and spiritists). We must believe in as well, replacing our mediums and spiritists with prophets and priests of the Lord.
We stated earlier that you learn a lot about people by observing where they turn in times of trouble.33 When David’s life was in jeopardy, he turned first to Samuel, next to Jonathan, and then to Ahimelech the priest. David consistently returned to the sources of his childhood faith. By contrast, Saul’s visit to Endor in his darkest hour represents his final departure from faith in Yahweh. Any severe crisis heightens the sense of what one really believes.
During World War II, combat soldiers in Belgium on Christmas Day were involved in the Battle of the Bulge, one of the most brutal and gruesome battles in the history of the United States Army. Even though there was no general cease-fire, the troops spoke of an “urge to go to church,” which resulted in a few strange services in which civilians sat with soldiers in full combat fatigues and weapons.34 My father was a sergeant in the 83rd Infantry Division on the northwest flank of the bulge. Under intense artillery fire when several men in his squad lost their lives, he testifies to an overwhelming sense of God’s presence, which drove him back to his own childhood faith and resulted in commitments that lasted the rest of his life.
We caricature the “foxhole prayer” as a commitment tossed heavenward in desperation and one that seldom lasts. But I have met veterans who are convinced that their own crisis was life-changing, while other men in the same situation never gave God a thought. The crisis has a way of bringing to the surface what one really believes. Saul’s trip to Endor belied the king’s real commitments and revealed that his failure to nurture his relationship with Yahweh during his lifetime meant he was unprepared for his life to end. Christians must attend to that most important of all relationships so that in our own moment of crisis, which is inevitable for us all, we can face God with confidence and hope.
Original Meaning
Circumstances of Saul’s Final Humiliation (28:3–6)
THIS PARAGRAPH PROVIDES essential background elements for reading what follows. The narrator moves succinctly from older events that need to be foregrounded because of their relevance (28:3) to recent and current events that make it possible for the reader to critique Saul’s actions in the rest of the text (28:4–6).5
The first piece of older information is a detail recorded earlier, namely, the death of Samuel (see 25:1).6 Thus, we remember that Saul has lost his prophetic source of divine guidance. But by implication we also recall that Samuel rests among the shades of the underworld, which means he can still be consulted through the practice of necromancy.7
The additional information from the past is new to us: Saul had banished all “mediums and spiritists” from Israel. The narrator anticipates the witch’s initial objections (28:9). But more importantly, the phrase highlights an important detail that aids the reader in critiquing Saul’s actions. Even Saul himself, at some point earlier in his reign—perhaps under the direction of Samuel—had forbidden the use of necromancy. By expelling “mediums and spiritists,” Saul had obeyed Pentateuchal law (Lev. 19:31; 20:27; Deut. 18:10–11).8 But as we will soon see, driving the specific sin of necromancy from Saul’s land did not drive the roots of that sin from his heart.
The narrator now moves to current events. The battle lines are being drawn in the fateful Jezreel Valley, where armies often gathered for battle. In the northern reaches of the valley, the Philistines are encamped at Shunem (approximately nine miles east-northeast of Megiddo). The very presence of the Philistine army so far north indicates Saul’s weakness and the likelihood that they are attempting to isolate Saul from the Israelite tribes farther to the north.9 On the opposite side of the valley to the south lies the Gilboa ridge, approximately ten miles south-southeast of Shunem.10 The two armies are facing off for battle. Saul’s position on Mount Gilboa places him strategically on a type of observation deck so he can observe the outcome.
The narrator prepares us further for what follows by exposing Saul’s inner life. At the sight of the Philistine army, “terror filled his heart” (28:5). The statement that he “inquired of the LORD” is significant in light of this phrase’s other occurrences in 1 Samuel (see comments at 23:1–6). The extended narrative has contrasted Saul and David by showing that David often “inquired of Yahweh,” and this feature will continue to characterize him in 2 Samuel. Even when this particular means of seeking divine guidance is not employed (for whatever reason), David continues to depend on God’s direction for his decisions (see comments on ch. 27). By contrast, Saul has killed the priests of Nob and forfeited the means of consulting Yahweh (22:6–23). Now the contrast comes to a climax, because Saul finally “inquires” but receives no answer. The text anticipates 30:7–8, where David again inquires before avenging the war crimes at Ziklag.
For Saul, it is too late. Verse 6 catalogs the acceptable methods by which an Israelite can seek God’s guidance: dreams, lots (NIV “Urim”), and prophecy.11 But Yahweh has long since stopped answering Saul since the king is more inclined to make up his mind before asking (see 14:36–37). When his “foxhole” prayer brings no satisfaction, he becomes desperate to discern the plan of God. His next action represents the lowest point of his troubled reign as king over Israel.
Saul Consults the Medium at Endor (28:7–14)
Bridging Contexts
WHERE TO TURN IN A CRISIS. During the darkest days of David’s exile, when Saul had turned all his energies to the sole task of killing him, David sought help wherever he could find it. As we noted in our comments on chapter 21, you can learn a lot about a person by seeing where he or she turns in a time of trouble. David turned first to Samuel (while he was still alive) at his hometown, Ramah (19:18–24). When it became obvious the prophets at Ramah could not protect David indefinitely, he fled back to Gibeah to seek the help and advice of his good friend Jonathan (20:1–42). Finally, convinced he could not secure reconciliation with Saul and being in need of arms and shelter, David went to Ahimelech the priest at Nob (21:1–9). In his greatest hour of need, David returned to the sources of his childhood faith and was reminded that Yahweh had always been his help.
This text obviously tells us a lot about Saul by relating where he turned in his darkest hour. The historian’s contrast between Saul and David thus builds to a climax in these closing chapters of 1 Samuel. Saul’s nocturnal trip to Endor marks his final departure from faith in Yahweh, from the faith that Samuel had stood for in life. Now in death, as in life, Samuel proclaims once again the judgment of the Lord against Saul. This episode along with the report of Saul’s ignoble death at Mount Gilboa (ch. 31) marks the final events in the fall of the king.
As David ascends to new heights, Saul is stooping to new lows. In 2 Samuel, Saul’s descendants gradually disappear until the only remaining trace is the pitiable Mephibosheth, who is graciously sustained at David’s table (2 Sam. 9:13). The Chronicler’s brief treatment of Saul cites this event as evidence that Saul deserved the punishment that befell him (1 Chron. 10:13–14): “Saul died because he was unfaithful to the LORD; he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance, and did not inquire of the LORD. So the LORD put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse.”
Magic arts and prophecy. The Old Testament preserves vestiges of necromancy in other texts, indicating that necromancy continued to be a temptation for the Israelites for centuries.30 According to the Pentateuch, official Yahwism condemned cults of the dead (Lev. 19:26–32; 20:6, 27; Deut. 14:1; 18:9–11; 26:14). But several references in the historical books imply that individual Israelites continued to succumb to the idea that such practices were beneficial. David’s vigil over the imminent death of his son seems to engage in a ritual descent to the underworld (2 Sam. 12:15–24). David’s son Absalom apparently engaged in some sort of cult of the dead in a funerary ritual for his deceased sons (14:27; 18:18). The story of the bones of Elisha reviving a dead man may well reflect the belief, known also from Mesopotamian texts, that the bones of the deceased could be utilized for curative purposes (2 Kings 13:20–21). The biblical authors condemned Manasseh’s evil as including consultation with mediums (21:6), and Josiah’s reform specifically targeted forms of divination, including necromancy (23:24).
Israel’s ban on magic was a unique characteristic of the nation’s overarching worldview. All other nations in the ancient Near East believed in and practiced a wide variety of magical arts. They believed formulaic recitations and imitative acts could manipulate and exploit the powers of the deities and thereby procure benefits for themselves that were otherwise impossible. By implication, the gods were viewed as subservient to supernatural forces beyond their control. Israel’s monotheism and concepts of the transcendence and sovereignty of Yahweh made such views an impossibility. The Creator God is not subservient to any manner of supernatural force beyond his control and cannot be manipulated under any circumstances. Israel’s theology simply made the use of magic forbidden.
Significantly, however, the Old Testament’s ban on magic is not based on the assertion that magic is ineffective. On the contrary, magic is banned precisely because it does work. As monotheists, the biblical authors did not believe magic was connected to other gods but depended on self-operating forces. They attributed a reality to magical power that was independent of the gods, though they seldom attempted a more specific definition of that power. Magic, therefore, was tantamount to human rebellion that unlocked divine secrets, making humanity equal with God.31
Two issues, therefore, help bring this passage into our century: magic and prophecy. Saul turns to the illegitimate use of magic as a means of seeking guidance while closing his eyes to the prophetic word. The result, ironically, is that the magic he uses actually confirms the prophetic word he has scorned. Samuel’s speech (28:16–19) makes this clear. The prophecies about Saul and David have been fulfilled, and these cannot be rescinded or ignored; they are only confirmed by Saul’s use of necromancy.
Thus, these closing chapters of 1 Samuel illustrate who can suitably serve as the anointed one. David, the legitimate anointed one, turns to Yahweh for guidance, either through the officially approved means of priestly ephod with its Urim and Thummim (22:10, 13, 15; 23:1–6; 30:8; 2 Sam. 2:1; 5:19, 23; 16:23) or through rational dependence on Yahweh’s guiding spirit (1 Sam. 27). By contrast, Saul has driven the priestly ephod away from his service because of his maniacal preoccupation with killing David and must now turn to magic to seek guidance. Magic and prophecy are related to each other as opposite sides of the same coin. They are mutually exclusive, and the anointed of Yahweh must choose between them. The use of magic will bring prophetic condemnation, while reliance on the prophetic word will result in the expulsion of magic from the land. In either case, the question is how one relates to the Lord and whether one will allow the Lord to direct one’s paths.
Contemporary Significance
Contemporary Significance
CONTEMPORARY INTEREST IN MAGIC. There are certain obvious ways in which we can relate this text to our contemporary setting. Not many years ago, the practice of magic and participation in the occult were rare in North American society and were definitely seen as emanating from the fringes of society. All of that has changed with the rise of postmodernism and especially in the emphases of the New Age movement. A positive side of postmodernism is a renewed hunger and desire to experience the supernatural. But wherever Christianity has been slow or unprepared to meet the need, the New Age movement has rushed in to fill the gap with beliefs in channeling, crystals, horoscopes, paranormal psychology, and reincarnation.
Saul in this text represents a paradigm of the individual who turns away from legitimate sources of relating to God and relies instead on illicit ways of manipulating God through magic. In many ways, this relates to the way New Agers offer our culture an array of services to assist people in their search for the supernatural as a means of self-fulfillment. The church needs to be consistent in condemning all uses of magic as tools for manipulating God and other less obvious strands, such as those put forward by the New Age movement.
Subtle magic. But there are more subtle ways in which this text applies. It would be simplistic for us to limit the application of this text to blatant heretical practices such as the occult and magical incantations. Rather, we should also consider how easy it is to use good things in a magical way in an attempt to manipulate God. For example, consider the magical use of prayer, church attendance, and tithing among modern believers. Saul’s reliance on a nonbiblical worldview needs to be applied to such cases in which perfunctory observance of the standard means of grace can come to represent the means by which we exact God’s good favor. In other words, some believers come to expect good things from God, even believe that God owes them something, because they (we!) have fulfilled certain obligations. One’s relationship with God can be quickly reduced to a sort of previously arranged agreement, a sort of quid pro quo, in which all we have to do is keep our end of the bargain and God will be forced to keep his.
I once served for a period of time as an intern chaplain in a prison while I was in training for ministry. One day I met Mr. Smith (not his real name). He was in prison for embezzlement, was serving a light term, and was expecting to be released soon. In one of our sessions, Mr. Smith began explaining how God would eventually bring him great success in his business ventures; in fact, he said God owed him success. When I tried delicately to ask about the particulars of that assumption, Mr. Smith acted surprised that I did not follow his logic. You see, God owed him success in business because he, Mr. Smith, had been so faithful to return a tithe of his profits to the church. He even quoted Scripture to prove his point (Luke 6:38): “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.” When I tried to suggest that this may be a misapplication of that verse and that, in fact, the Bible has other things to say about stewardship and our responsibilities in the world, Mr. Smith simply refused to listen to me. After all, I was only a young seminary student.
Later in my ministry, I realized Mr. Smith is no exception. In fact, his views on the use of money are in many ways symptomatic of other believers I have known, though his unmitigated avarice and unsophisticated hermeneutic made it easier to explain how he could arrive at such conclusions. What I have found more frustrating and less explainable is how believers who seem mature in every other respect and who have been actively involved in the life of the church for many years develop similar assumptions.
Indeed, many Christians today in the North American context implicitly view church attendance as a sort of deposit in their spiritual account. It is an investment they believe will pay benefits in the future. So with Bible reading, or tithing, or befriending the unchurched, or visiting shut-ins—all become a means to an end instead of a means of expressing our love for, adoration of, and thanks to God. Church attendance in such a view is transformed from a regular custom of worship to a means of ingratiating ourselves to God, a way of purchasing God’s favor. Such abuses of the means of grace are just as misguided as Saul’s trip to Endor.
Capitalizing on our faith. Another way in which to apply this text is to stress the inconsistency in Saul’s actions. Our Bridging Contexts section emphasized the two options available to Saul for divine communion: magic and prophecy. They are mutually exclusive, representing competing worldviews. Saul had rightly banned all mediums and spiritists from his kingdom (28:3), but he had not replaced them by nurturing and supporting the proper replacements for such mediums.
In other words, Saul had not fostered a close relationship with the legitimate means of divine communication, the prophets and priests of Yahweh, who should naturally have filled the void left by the departure of the mediums and spiritists. In fact, in Saul’s irrational pursuit of David, he had killed the majority of the priests and marginalized the prophets (cf. 22:6–23; 19:18–24). When the Philistine crisis came, Saul was unprepared because he had not consistently nurtured his relationship with God. He had not replaced the magicians with prophets. The trip to Endor reveals that he had not replaced his own personal reliance on magicians with a vital relationship with God.
One astute theologian who can help us understand this is Helmut Thielicke, who was forced to hammer out his theology on the anvil of Hitler’s Third Reich. Plagued by the realization that many of Germany’s Christians had accepted and even defended Nazism’s racial lies, Thielicke later explored theology’s “polar structure.”32 He contended that one pole of theology stems from “a superior, eternal basis derived from revelation,” while the other stems from “specific constellations of the spirit of the age.” As a result, Christian faith “believes against as well as in,” because it will always involve opposition to the Zeitgeist, or the spirit of the age. Using Saul as the example, we could argue that it is not enough to believe against (as Saul banned the mediums and spiritists). We must believe in as well, replacing our mediums and spiritists with prophets and priests of the Lord.
We stated earlier that you learn a lot about people by observing where they turn in times of trouble.33 When David’s life was in jeopardy, he turned first to Samuel, next to Jonathan, and then to Ahimelech the priest. David consistently returned to the sources of his childhood faith. By contrast, Saul’s visit to Endor in his darkest hour represents his final departure from faith in Yahweh. Any severe crisis heightens the sense of what one really believes.
During World War II, combat soldiers in Belgium on Christmas Day were involved in the Battle of the Bulge, one of the most brutal and gruesome battles in the history of the United States Army. Even though there was no general cease-fire, the troops spoke of an “urge to go to church,” which resulted in a few strange services in which civilians sat with soldiers in full combat fatigues and weapons.34 My father was a sergeant in the 83rd Infantry Division on the northwest flank of the bulge. Under intense artillery fire when several men in his squad lost their lives, he testifies to an overwhelming sense of God’s presence, which drove him back to his own childhood faith and resulted in commitments that lasted the rest of his life.
We caricature the “foxhole prayer” as a commitment tossed heavenward in desperation and one that seldom lasts. But I have met veterans who are convinced that their own crisis was life-changing, while other men in the same situation never gave God a thought. The crisis has a way of bringing to the surface what one really believes. Saul’s trip to Endor belied the king’s real commitments and revealed that his failure to nurture his relationship with Yahweh during his lifetime meant he was unprepared for his life to end. Christians must attend to that most important of all relationships so that in our own moment of crisis, which is inevitable for us all, we can face God with confidence and hope.
Original Meaning
Saul Consults the Medium at Endor (28:7–14)
IN A DESPERATE move, Saul asks his attendants to help him locate a medium who can communicate with the dead. The town of Endor has not been conclusively located, but according to all the biblical data, it is likely located in the southern portion of the Jezreel Valley, near the Kishon River.12
This text clearly illustrates what some Israelites believed about ancestor worship and cults of the dead.13 Materials from Ugarit and elsewhere in the ancient Near East have illumined the biblical evidence, and in recent decades scholarly investigations have come to new understandings of ancestor worship and related death rituals in popular religion during the Old Testament period.14 Against the wishes of the prophets and the leaders of normative religion in ancient Israel, some Israelites apparently persisted in the Canaanite custom of necromancy and other death rituals.15 In such rituals, actions were directed to the deceased in an attempt to appease the dead or to secure favors from them. This text, then, represents a vestige of the customs and religious practices of Canaanites and of some Israelites, despite the disapproval of normative Old Testament religion.16
The terminology of verse 8 may reflect certain aspects of the ritual. Saul’s visit at night may have been a simple military necessity. But nighttime may also have been the approved time for such séances, the darkness of night being the appropriate time to communicate with those who live in darkness.17 Saul’s specific imperative (qosomi, “consult”) is a technical verb for divination, which is not limited to necromancy but applies to all forms of divination.18 His intention is narrowed to necromancy here by the qualifying phrase, “a spirit for me.” The idea that Saul needs the medium to “bring up” someone reflects the concept of Sheol as a place for the dead beneath the earth’s surface, to which people descend at death.19
Ironically, the medium is hesitant.20 He who wanted to eliminate necromancy from the land (28:3) has come to her with just such a request, and she who communicates with the dead is worried about joining them prematurely: “Why have you set a trap for my life to bring about my death?” Once Saul guarantees her safety, the medium is ready to hear the name of the departed individual whom Saul wishes to contact. Now we learn for the first time that it is Samuel (though the reference in v. 3 prepared us for this news).
As on the day of Yahweh’s judgment, when his people who have rejected his Word will endure a famine of the prophetic word and search everywhere for that life-sustaining power but not find it (Amos 8:11–12), so Saul desperately wants to hear the word of Yahweh once again. The voice of his prophetic mentor has long been silenced by Saul’s persistent rebellion. But as the noose closes in around his neck on this night before his death, he who is king in name turns one final time to Israel’s kingmaker, Samuel. This great prophet has been Saul’s source of the life-sustaining word of Yahweh. Unfortunately for Saul, the die is cast.
Much to the surprise of the medium (not to mention the modern reader!), she successfully conjures up Samuel. At his appearance, the woman shrieks and immediately recognizes that her client is King Saul himself (28:12). At this point in the narrative, we are left with unanswered questions. Why precisely should the woman be shocked at the apparition if she were accustomed to such séances? Does her surprise indicate that she does not really have the power to raise the dead and is therefore shocked at her own success? Or does Samuel’s appearance differ significantly from other specters? Why does she suddenly discern Saul’s identity? Some have argued that the woman does not actually have the ability to conjure up the dead, so that her alarm indicates her own lack of control of the situation.21
Without becoming sidetracked with questions that are finally unanswerable, we can state that the essentials are clear.22 Samuel appears to Saul one last time and communicates with him through this medium. Saul himself is not able to see Samuel, at least not initially, since he has to ask the medium about Samuel’s appearance (28:14). Convinced by her description that it is indeed Samuel, the king prostrates himself before the venerable prophet and prepares for the encounter.
The medium’s description of Samuel requires comment: “I see a spirit coming up out of the ground” (28:13). The NIV’s “spirit” is the ordinary word for “God” or “gods” (ʾ elohim), and it has long been recognized that it can stand simply for “godlike being” or “celestial spirit.”23 But work done in recent decades on ancestor worship in other ancient cultures has confirmed that the dead could be referred to as “gods” in an attempt to describe some type of transcendent character. These individuals existed beyond the natural realm, so that we might describe them as “preternatural.”24 Furthermore, Samuel is described as arising out of the “ground” (haʾareṣ), which in Hebrew as well as in cognate Near Eastern languages can designate the netherworld or the realm of the dead.25 Thus the medium explains to Saul that she is observing a preternatural being coming up from the underworld.
Samuel’s Answer and Its Result (28:15–25)
Bridging Contexts
WHERE TO TURN IN A CRISIS. During the darkest days of David’s exile, when Saul had turned all his energies to the sole task of killing him, David sought help wherever he could find it. As we noted in our comments on chapter 21, you can learn a lot about a person by seeing where he or she turns in a time of trouble. David turned first to Samuel (while he was still alive) at his hometown, Ramah (19:18–24). When it became obvious the prophets at Ramah could not protect David indefinitely, he fled back to Gibeah to seek the help and advice of his good friend Jonathan (20:1–42). Finally, convinced he could not secure reconciliation with Saul and being in need of arms and shelter, David went to Ahimelech the priest at Nob (21:1–9). In his greatest hour of need, David returned to the sources of his childhood faith and was reminded that Yahweh had always been his help.
This text obviously tells us a lot about Saul by relating where he turned in his darkest hour. The historian’s contrast between Saul and David thus builds to a climax in these closing chapters of 1 Samuel. Saul’s nocturnal trip to Endor marks his final departure from faith in Yahweh, from the faith that Samuel had stood for in life. Now in death, as in life, Samuel proclaims once again the judgment of the Lord against Saul. This episode along with the report of Saul’s ignoble death at Mount Gilboa (ch. 31) marks the final events in the fall of the king.
As David ascends to new heights, Saul is stooping to new lows. In 2 Samuel, Saul’s descendants gradually disappear until the only remaining trace is the pitiable Mephibosheth, who is graciously sustained at David’s table (2 Sam. 9:13). The Chronicler’s brief treatment of Saul cites this event as evidence that Saul deserved the punishment that befell him (1 Chron. 10:13–14): “Saul died because he was unfaithful to the LORD; he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance, and did not inquire of the LORD. So the LORD put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse.”
Magic arts and prophecy. The Old Testament preserves vestiges of necromancy in other texts, indicating that necromancy continued to be a temptation for the Israelites for centuries.30 According to the Pentateuch, official Yahwism condemned cults of the dead (Lev. 19:26–32; 20:6, 27; Deut. 14:1; 18:9–11; 26:14). But several references in the historical books imply that individual Israelites continued to succumb to the idea that such practices were beneficial. David’s vigil over the imminent death of his son seems to engage in a ritual descent to the underworld (2 Sam. 12:15–24). David’s son Absalom apparently engaged in some sort of cult of the dead in a funerary ritual for his deceased sons (14:27; 18:18). The story of the bones of Elisha reviving a dead man may well reflect the belief, known also from Mesopotamian texts, that the bones of the deceased could be utilized for curative purposes (2 Kings 13:20–21). The biblical authors condemned Manasseh’s evil as including consultation with mediums (21:6), and Josiah’s reform specifically targeted forms of divination, including necromancy (23:24).
Israel’s ban on magic was a unique characteristic of the nation’s overarching worldview. All other nations in the ancient Near East believed in and practiced a wide variety of magical arts. They believed formulaic recitations and imitative acts could manipulate and exploit the powers of the deities and thereby procure benefits for themselves that were otherwise impossible. By implication, the gods were viewed as subservient to supernatural forces beyond their control. Israel’s monotheism and concepts of the transcendence and sovereignty of Yahweh made such views an impossibility. The Creator God is not subservient to any manner of supernatural force beyond his control and cannot be manipulated under any circumstances. Israel’s theology simply made the use of magic forbidden.
Significantly, however, the Old Testament’s ban on magic is not based on the assertion that magic is ineffective. On the contrary, magic is banned precisely because it does work. As monotheists, the biblical authors did not believe magic was connected to other gods but depended on self-operating forces. They attributed a reality to magical power that was independent of the gods, though they seldom attempted a more specific definition of that power. Magic, therefore, was tantamount to human rebellion that unlocked divine secrets, making humanity equal with God.31
Two issues, therefore, help bring this passage into our century: magic and prophecy. Saul turns to the illegitimate use of magic as a means of seeking guidance while closing his eyes to the prophetic word. The result, ironically, is that the magic he uses actually confirms the prophetic word he has scorned. Samuel’s speech (28:16–19) makes this clear. The prophecies about Saul and David have been fulfilled, and these cannot be rescinded or ignored; they are only confirmed by Saul’s use of necromancy.
Thus, these closing chapters of 1 Samuel illustrate who can suitably serve as the anointed one. David, the legitimate anointed one, turns to Yahweh for guidance, either through the officially approved means of priestly ephod with its Urim and Thummim (22:10, 13, 15; 23:1–6; 30:8; 2 Sam. 2:1; 5:19, 23; 16:23) or through rational dependence on Yahweh’s guiding spirit (1 Sam. 27). By contrast, Saul has driven the priestly ephod away from his service because of his maniacal preoccupation with killing David and must now turn to magic to seek guidance. Magic and prophecy are related to each other as opposite sides of the same coin. They are mutually exclusive, and the anointed of Yahweh must choose between them. The use of magic will bring prophetic condemnation, while reliance on the prophetic word will result in the expulsion of magic from the land. In either case, the question is how one relates to the Lord and whether one will allow the Lord to direct one’s paths.
Contemporary Significance
Contemporary Significance
CONTEMPORARY INTEREST IN MAGIC. There are certain obvious ways in which we can relate this text to our contemporary setting. Not many years ago, the practice of magic and participation in the occult were rare in North American society and were definitely seen as emanating from the fringes of society. All of that has changed with the rise of postmodernism and especially in the emphases of the New Age movement. A positive side of postmodernism is a renewed hunger and desire to experience the supernatural. But wherever Christianity has been slow or unprepared to meet the need, the New Age movement has rushed in to fill the gap with beliefs in channeling, crystals, horoscopes, paranormal psychology, and reincarnation.
Saul in this text represents a paradigm of the individual who turns away from legitimate sources of relating to God and relies instead on illicit ways of manipulating God through magic. In many ways, this relates to the way New Agers offer our culture an array of services to assist people in their search for the supernatural as a means of self-fulfillment. The church needs to be consistent in condemning all uses of magic as tools for manipulating God and other less obvious strands, such as those put forward by the New Age movement.
Subtle magic. But there are more subtle ways in which this text applies. It would be simplistic for us to limit the application of this text to blatant heretical practices such as the occult and magical incantations. Rather, we should also consider how easy it is to use good things in a magical way in an attempt to manipulate God. For example, consider the magical use of prayer, church attendance, and tithing among modern believers. Saul’s reliance on a nonbiblical worldview needs to be applied to such cases in which perfunctory observance of the standard means of grace can come to represent the means by which we exact God’s good favor. In other words, some believers come to expect good things from God, even believe that God owes them something, because they (we!) have fulfilled certain obligations. One’s relationship with God can be quickly reduced to a sort of previously arranged agreement, a sort of quid pro quo, in which all we have to do is keep our end of the bargain and God will be forced to keep his.
I once served for a period of time as an intern chaplain in a prison while I was in training for ministry. One day I met Mr. Smith (not his real name). He was in prison for embezzlement, was serving a light term, and was expecting to be released soon. In one of our sessions, Mr. Smith began explaining how God would eventually bring him great success in his business ventures; in fact, he said God owed him success. When I tried delicately to ask about the particulars of that assumption, Mr. Smith acted surprised that I did not follow his logic. You see, God owed him success in business because he, Mr. Smith, had been so faithful to return a tithe of his profits to the church. He even quoted Scripture to prove his point (Luke 6:38): “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.” When I tried to suggest that this may be a misapplication of that verse and that, in fact, the Bible has other things to say about stewardship and our responsibilities in the world, Mr. Smith simply refused to listen to me. After all, I was only a young seminary student.
Later in my ministry, I realized Mr. Smith is no exception. In fact, his views on the use of money are in many ways symptomatic of other believers I have known, though his unmitigated avarice and unsophisticated hermeneutic made it easier to explain how he could arrive at such conclusions. What I have found more frustrating and less explainable is how believers who seem mature in every other respect and who have been actively involved in the life of the church for many years develop similar assumptions.
Indeed, many Christians today in the North American context implicitly view church attendance as a sort of deposit in their spiritual account. It is an investment they believe will pay benefits in the future. So with Bible reading, or tithing, or befriending the unchurched, or visiting shut-ins—all become a means to an end instead of a means of expressing our love for, adoration of, and thanks to God. Church attendance in such a view is transformed from a regular custom of worship to a means of ingratiating ourselves to God, a way of purchasing God’s favor. Such abuses of the means of grace are just as misguided as Saul’s trip to Endor.
Capitalizing on our faith. Another way in which to apply this text is to stress the inconsistency in Saul’s actions. Our Bridging Contexts section emphasized the two options available to Saul for divine communion: magic and prophecy. They are mutually exclusive, representing competing worldviews. Saul had rightly banned all mediums and spiritists from his kingdom (28:3), but he had not replaced them by nurturing and supporting the proper replacements for such mediums.
In other words, Saul had not fostered a close relationship with the legitimate means of divine communication, the prophets and priests of Yahweh, who should naturally have filled the void left by the departure of the mediums and spiritists. In fact, in Saul’s irrational pursuit of David, he had killed the majority of the priests and marginalized the prophets (cf. 22:6–23; 19:18–24). When the Philistine crisis came, Saul was unprepared because he had not consistently nurtured his relationship with God. He had not replaced the magicians with prophets. The trip to Endor reveals that he had not replaced his own personal reliance on magicians with a vital relationship with God.
One astute theologian who can help us understand this is Helmut Thielicke, who was forced to hammer out his theology on the anvil of Hitler’s Third Reich. Plagued by the realization that many of Germany’s Christians had accepted and even defended Nazism’s racial lies, Thielicke later explored theology’s “polar structure.”32 He contended that one pole of theology stems from “a superior, eternal basis derived from revelation,” while the other stems from “specific constellations of the spirit of the age.” As a result, Christian faith “believes against as well as in,” because it will always involve opposition to the Zeitgeist, or the spirit of the age. Using Saul as the example, we could argue that it is not enough to believe against (as Saul banned the mediums and spiritists). We must believe in as well, replacing our mediums and spiritists with prophets and priests of the Lord.
We stated earlier that you learn a lot about people by observing where they turn in times of trouble.33 When David’s life was in jeopardy, he turned first to Samuel, next to Jonathan, and then to Ahimelech the priest. David consistently returned to the sources of his childhood faith. By contrast, Saul’s visit to Endor in his darkest hour represents his final departure from faith in Yahweh. Any severe crisis heightens the sense of what one really believes.
During World War II, combat soldiers in Belgium on Christmas Day were involved in the Battle of the Bulge, one of the most brutal and gruesome battles in the history of the United States Army. Even though there was no general cease-fire, the troops spoke of an “urge to go to church,” which resulted in a few strange services in which civilians sat with soldiers in full combat fatigues and weapons.34 My father was a sergeant in the 83rd Infantry Division on the northwest flank of the bulge. Under intense artillery fire when several men in his squad lost their lives, he testifies to an overwhelming sense of God’s presence, which drove him back to his own childhood faith and resulted in commitments that lasted the rest of his life.
We caricature the “foxhole prayer” as a commitment tossed heavenward in desperation and one that seldom lasts. But I have met veterans who are convinced that their own crisis was life-changing, while other men in the same situation never gave God a thought. The crisis has a way of bringing to the surface what one really believes. Saul’s trip to Endor belied the king’s real commitments and revealed that his failure to nurture his relationship with Yahweh during his lifetime meant he was unprepared for his life to end. Christians must attend to that most important of all relationships so that in our own moment of crisis, which is inevitable for us all, we can face God with confidence and hope.
Original Meaning
Samuel’s Answer and Its Result (28:15–25)
GIVEN AN AUDIENCE WITH HIS FORMER MENTOR, Saul summarizes his situation succinctly and factually: The Philistines are threatening and God has withdrawn (28:15). Saul’s concluding explanation reveals his desperate and hopeless condition: “I have called on you to tell me what to do.” The matter-of-fact tone Saul uses seems to imply that he and Samuel can return to the early years of Saul’s kingdom. Saul is hoping to turn back the clock to better days. It is as though he wants Samuel to forget all that has happened—as if he is saying: “Please ignore this medium standing here and the illicit way I have contacted you, or your various condemnations of my character in the past, or the way I have recklessly sought to kill David while neglecting the Philistines all these years. Please tell me what to do now.”
Samuel’s reply has no advice concerning the impending battle with the Philistines (28:16–19). The message of the deceased Samuel was the same as the living Samuel. He simply reiterates the divine judgment against the king announced when he was alive. Yahweh is no longer with Saul; rather, he has been faithful to his word by becoming Saul’s enemy. He has torn the kingdom from him and given it to David. As in chapter 15, all of this relates to Saul’s failure in the war against the Amalekites. The great old prophet (as eloquent in death as in life) has condensed the entire narrative of chapters 16–28 into the fulfillment of his earlier condemnations of Saul (13:13–14; 15:22–29).
Samuel tells Saul no more than he should already know, i.e., why ask me, since you already have the word of the Lord? Or, with a slight twist, why ask me, since I am dead and can only tell you what you already know?26
Though there is no advice concerning the Philistines, there is this: “The LORD will hand over both Israel and you to the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me.” Samuel ignores the sin of necromancy and the presence of the medium. He makes no more speeches decrying Saul’s shameful disregard for Yahweh’s word. He speaks only of “today” and “tomorrow.”27 The time of Saul’s judgment has arrived.
First Samuel has narrated the anointing of two kings and has traced the conflict between the two. The theme of Yahweh’s rejection of the first anointed one, Saul, arrives at a climax in 28:20 (and is substantiated in ch. 31). Saul falls “full length on the ground,” overcome with fear because of the message from Samuel. We have come a long way from the depiction of Saul as head and shoulders above the crowd, the man of God’s own choosing (10:23–24).
Saul’s lack of food has variously been explained as a necessity of war because food was not easily accessible or as a result of his emotional state. But it seems probable that fasting was a requirement of the ritual involved in necromancy.28 He has gone without food “all that day and night” in preparation for his night visit to the medium at Endor. Now he is exhausted, finished. His kingdom is over, and he himself as good as dead. The woman feeds him his last meal, a banquet fit for a king who will not be king much longer.29
Bridging Contexts
Bridging Contexts
WHERE TO TURN IN A CRISIS. During the darkest days of David’s exile, when Saul had turned all his energies to the sole task of killing him, David sought help wherever he could find it. As we noted in our comments on chapter 21, you can learn a lot about a person by seeing where he or she turns in a time of trouble. David turned first to Samuel (while he was still alive) at his hometown, Ramah (19:18–24). When it became obvious the prophets at Ramah could not protect David indefinitely, he fled back to Gibeah to seek the help and advice of his good friend Jonathan (20:1–42). Finally, convinced he could not secure reconciliation with Saul and being in need of arms and shelter, David went to Ahimelech the priest at Nob (21:1–9). In his greatest hour of need, David returned to the sources of his childhood faith and was reminded that Yahweh had always been his help.
This text obviously tells us a lot about Saul by relating where he turned in his darkest hour. The historian’s contrast between Saul and David thus builds to a climax in these closing chapters of 1 Samuel. Saul’s nocturnal trip to Endor marks his final departure from faith in Yahweh, from the faith that Samuel had stood for in life. Now in death, as in life, Samuel proclaims once again the judgment of the Lord against Saul. This episode along with the report of Saul’s ignoble death at Mount Gilboa (ch. 31) marks the final events in the fall of the king.
As David ascends to new heights, Saul is stooping to new lows. In 2 Samuel, Saul’s descendants gradually disappear until the only remaining trace is the pitiable Mephibosheth, who is graciously sustained at David’s table (2 Sam. 9:13). The Chronicler’s brief treatment of Saul cites this event as evidence that Saul deserved the punishment that befell him (1 Chron. 10:13–14): “Saul died because he was unfaithful to the LORD; he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance, and did not inquire of the LORD. So the LORD put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse.”
Magic arts and prophecy. The Old Testament preserves vestiges of necromancy in other texts, indicating that necromancy continued to be a temptation for the Israelites for centuries.30 According to the Pentateuch, official Yahwism condemned cults of the dead (Lev. 19:26–32; 20:6, 27; Deut. 14:1; 18:9–11; 26:14). But several references in the historical books imply that individual Israelites continued to succumb to the idea that such practices were beneficial. David’s vigil over the imminent death of his son seems to engage in a ritual descent to the underworld (2 Sam. 12:15–24). David’s son Absalom apparently engaged in some sort of cult of the dead in a funerary ritual for his deceased sons (14:27; 18:18). The story of the bones of Elisha reviving a dead man may well reflect the belief, known also from Mesopotamian texts, that the bones of the deceased could be utilized for curative purposes (2 Kings 13:20–21). The biblical authors condemned Manasseh’s evil as including consultation with mediums (21:6), and Josiah’s reform specifically targeted forms of divination, including necromancy (23:24).
Israel’s ban on magic was a unique characteristic of the nation’s overarching worldview. All other nations in the ancient Near East believed in and practiced a wide variety of magical arts. They believed formulaic recitations and imitative acts could manipulate and exploit the powers of the deities and thereby procure benefits for themselves that were otherwise impossible. By implication, the gods were viewed as subservient to supernatural forces beyond their control. Israel’s monotheism and concepts of the transcendence and sovereignty of Yahweh made such views an impossibility. The Creator God is not subservient to any manner of supernatural force beyond his control and cannot be manipulated under any circumstances. Israel’s theology simply made the use of magic forbidden.
Significantly, however, the Old Testament’s ban on magic is not based on the assertion that magic is ineffective. On the contrary, magic is banned precisely because it does work. As monotheists, the biblical authors did not believe magic was connected to other gods but depended on self-operating forces. They attributed a reality to magical power that was independent of the gods, though they seldom attempted a more specific definition of that power. Magic, therefore, was tantamount to human rebellion that unlocked divine secrets, making humanity equal with God.31
Two issues, therefore, help bring this passage into our century: magic and prophecy. Saul turns to the illegitimate use of magic as a means of seeking guidance while closing his eyes to the prophetic word. The result, ironically, is that the magic he uses actually confirms the prophetic word he has scorned. Samuel’s speech (28:16–19) makes this clear. The prophecies about Saul and David have been fulfilled, and these cannot be rescinded or ignored; they are only confirmed by Saul’s use of necromancy.
Thus, these closing chapters of 1 Samuel illustrate who can suitably serve as the anointed one. David, the legitimate anointed one, turns to Yahweh for guidance, either through the officially approved means of priestly ephod with its Urim and Thummim (22:10, 13, 15; 23:1–6; 30:8; 2 Sam. 2:1; 5:19, 23; 16:23) or through rational dependence on Yahweh’s guiding spirit (1 Sam. 27). By contrast, Saul has driven the priestly ephod away from his service because of his maniacal preoccupation with killing David and must now turn to magic to seek guidance. Magic and prophecy are related to each other as opposite sides of the same coin. They are mutually exclusive, and the anointed of Yahweh must choose between them. The use of magic will bring prophetic condemnation, while reliance on the prophetic word will result in the expulsion of magic from the land. In either case, the question is how one relates to the Lord and whether one will allow the Lord to direct one’s paths.
Contemporary Significance
Contemporary Significance
CONTEMPORARY INTEREST IN MAGIC. There are certain obvious ways in which we can relate this text to our contemporary setting. Not many years ago, the practice of magic and participation in the occult were rare in North American society and were definitely seen as emanating from the fringes of society. All of that has changed with the rise of postmodernism and especially in the emphases of the New Age movement. A positive side of postmodernism is a renewed hunger and desire to experience the supernatural. But wherever Christianity has been slow or unprepared to meet the need, the New Age movement has rushed in to fill the gap with beliefs in channeling, crystals, horoscopes, paranormal psychology, and reincarnation.
Saul in this text represents a paradigm of the individual who turns away from legitimate sources of relating to God and relies instead on illicit ways of manipulating God through magic. In many ways, this relates to the way New Agers offer our culture an array of services to assist people in their search for the supernatural as a means of self-fulfillment. The church needs to be consistent in condemning all uses of magic as tools for manipulating God and other less obvious strands, such as those put forward by the New Age movement.
Subtle magic. But there are more subtle ways in which this text applies. It would be simplistic for us to limit the application of this text to blatant heretical practices such as the occult and magical incantations. Rather, we should also consider how easy it is to use good things in a magical way in an attempt to manipulate God. For example, consider the magical use of prayer, church attendance, and tithing among modern believers. Saul’s reliance on a nonbiblical worldview needs to be applied to such cases in which perfunctory observance of the standard means of grace can come to represent the means by which we exact God’s good favor. In other words, some believers come to expect good things from God, even believe that God owes them something, because they (we!) have fulfilled certain obligations. One’s relationship with God can be quickly reduced to a sort of previously arranged agreement, a sort of quid pro quo, in which all we have to do is keep our end of the bargain and God will be forced to keep his.
I once served for a period of time as an intern chaplain in a prison while I was in training for ministry. One day I met Mr. Smith (not his real name). He was in prison for embezzlement, was serving a light term, and was expecting to be released soon. In one of our sessions, Mr. Smith began explaining how God would eventually bring him great success in his business ventures; in fact, he said God owed him success. When I tried delicately to ask about the particulars of that assumption, Mr. Smith acted surprised that I did not follow his logic. You see, God owed him success in business because he, Mr. Smith, had been so faithful to return a tithe of his profits to the church. He even quoted Scripture to prove his point (Luke 6:38): “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.” When I tried to suggest that this may be a misapplication of that verse and that, in fact, the Bible has other things to say about stewardship and our responsibilities in the world, Mr. Smith simply refused to listen to me. After all, I was only a young seminary student.
Later in my ministry, I realized Mr. Smith is no exception. In fact, his views on the use of money are in many ways symptomatic of other believers I have known, though his unmitigated avarice and unsophisticated hermeneutic made it easier to explain how he could arrive at such conclusions. What I have found more frustrating and less explainable is how believers who seem mature in every other respect and who have been actively involved in the life of the church for many years develop similar assumptions.
Indeed, many Christians today in the North American context implicitly view church attendance as a sort of deposit in their spiritual account. It is an investment they believe will pay benefits in the future. So with Bible reading, or tithing, or befriending the unchurched, or visiting shut-ins—all become a means to an end instead of a means of expressing our love for, adoration of, and thanks to God. Church attendance in such a view is transformed from a regular custom of worship to a means of ingratiating ourselves to God, a way of purchasing God’s favor. Such abuses of the means of grace are just as misguided as Saul’s trip to Endor.
Capitalizing on our faith. Another way in which to apply this text is to stress the inconsistency in Saul’s actions. Our Bridging Contexts section emphasized the two options available to Saul for divine communion: magic and prophecy. They are mutually exclusive, representing competing worldviews. Saul had rightly banned all mediums and spiritists from his kingdom (28:3), but he had not replaced them by nurturing and supporting the proper replacements for such mediums.
In other words, Saul had not fostered a close relationship with the legitimate means of divine communication, the prophets and priests of Yahweh, who should naturally have filled the void left by the departure of the mediums and spiritists. In fact, in Saul’s irrational pursuit of David, he had killed the majority of the priests and marginalized the prophets (cf. 22:6–23; 19:18–24). When the Philistine crisis came, Saul was unprepared because he had not consistently nurtured his relationship with God. He had not replaced the magicians with prophets. The trip to Endor reveals that he had not replaced his own personal reliance on magicians with a vital relationship with God.
One astute theologian who can help us understand this is Helmut Thielicke, who was forced to hammer out his theology on the anvil of Hitler’s Third Reich. Plagued by the realization that many of Germany’s Christians had accepted and even defended Nazism’s racial lies, Thielicke later explored theology’s “polar structure.”32 He contended that one pole of theology stems from “a superior, eternal basis derived from revelation,” while the other stems from “specific constellations of the spirit of the age.” As a result, Christian faith “believes against as well as in,” because it will always involve opposition to the Zeitgeist, or the spirit of the age. Using Saul as the example, we could argue that it is not enough to believe against (as Saul banned the mediums and spiritists). We must believe in as well, replacing our mediums and spiritists with prophets and priests of the Lord.
We stated earlier that you learn a lot about people by observing where they turn in times of trouble.33 When David’s life was in jeopardy, he turned first to Samuel, next to Jonathan, and then to Ahimelech the priest. David consistently returned to the sources of his childhood faith. By contrast, Saul’s visit to Endor in his darkest hour represents his final departure from faith in Yahweh. Any severe crisis heightens the sense of what one really believes.
During World War II, combat soldiers in Belgium on Christmas Day were involved in the Battle of the Bulge, one of the most brutal and gruesome battles in the history of the United States Army. Even though there was no general cease-fire, the troops spoke of an “urge to go to church,” which resulted in a few strange services in which civilians sat with soldiers in full combat fatigues and weapons.34 My father was a sergeant in the 83rd Infantry Division on the northwest flank of the bulge. Under intense artillery fire when several men in his squad lost their lives, he testifies to an overwhelming sense of God’s presence, which drove him back to his own childhood faith and resulted in commitments that lasted the rest of his life.
We caricature the “foxhole prayer” as a commitment tossed heavenward in desperation and one that seldom lasts. But I have met veterans who are convinced that their own crisis was life-changing, while other men in the same situation never gave God a thought. The crisis has a way of bringing to the surface what one really believes. Saul’s trip to Endor belied the king’s real commitments and revealed that his failure to nurture his relationship with Yahweh during his lifetime meant he was unprepared for his life to end. Christians must attend to that most important of all relationships so that in our own moment of crisis, which is inevitable for us all, we can face God with confidence and hope.