When Desperation Meets the Supernatural
What’s 1 Samuel 28 about?
This is the story of a king who’d lost everything – including God’s voice – desperately seeking answers from the one place he’d forbidden others to go. It’s about what happens when fear drives us to abandon everything we once stood for, and the tragic consequences of trying to force spiritual encounters on our own terms.
The Full Context
Picture Israel’s first king in his final days – not the young shepherd-slayer of giants, but a paranoid, desperate man haunted by his own choices. Saul had systematically destroyed his relationship with God through disobedience, murdered innocent priests, and spent years hunting the very man God had chosen as his successor. The Philistines are gathering for what will be the final battle, Samuel the prophet is dead, and for the first time in Saul’s reign, God is completely silent.
This passage sits like a dark hinge in Israel’s history, marking the definitive end of Saul’s reign and the transition to David’s kingdom. What makes this story so haunting isn’t just the supernatural elements – it’s watching a man who once had everything systematically lose his way through pride and fear. The author uses this dramatic encounter to show us the ultimate consequences of rejecting God’s guidance: when we cut ourselves off from the true source of wisdom, we become vulnerable to counterfeits that promise answers but deliver only deeper darkness.
What the Ancient Words Tell Us
The Hebrew here is absolutely electric with tension. When the text says Saul was yare’ (afraid), it’s using the strongest possible word for terror – the kind that makes your knees buckle and your heart pound out of your chest. This isn’t nervous anxiety; this is existential dread.
But here’s what’s fascinating: the same root word yare’ is used throughout Scripture for “fear of the Lord” – that healthy reverence that leads to wisdom. Saul had lost his holy fear of God and replaced it with unholy terror of his circumstances.
Grammar Geeks
When the woman says “I see gods (elohim) coming up from the earth,” she uses the same word used for the true God throughout the Hebrew Bible. The ancient reader would have immediately caught the theological tension – is this really divine, or is something else masquerading as divine authority?
The verb used for Samuel “coming up” is alah, the same word used for sacrifices ascending to God. It’s as if the author is asking: is this a legitimate spiritual encounter, or a twisted inversion of true worship?
What Would the Original Audience Have Heard?
To ancient Israelites, this story would have been absolutely scandalous. Consulting the dead wasn’t just forbidden – it was the kind of abomination that got entire nations expelled from the Promised Land. The law was crystal clear: “There shall not be found among you anyone who… consults with the dead” (Deuteronomy 18:10-11).
But here’s their king – the man who had purged mediums and necromancers from the land – secretly seeking out the very practices he’d condemned. The irony would have been devastating. It’s like watching a drug enforcement officer become an addict, or a marriage counselor having an affair.
Did You Know?
The “Witch of Endor” wasn’t actually a witch in the Halloween sense. The Hebrew word ba’alat-ov literally means “mistress of a familiar spirit” – someone who claimed to have a spiritual guide that could contact the dead. These practitioners were found throughout the ancient Near East and were considered serious threats to Israel’s covenant relationship with God.
The original audience would also have recognized the geographical significance. Endor sits in the shadow of Mount Tabor, where Deborah and Barak had won their great victory for Israel. Now, in the same region where Israel once triumphed through faith, their king is seeking victory through forbidden means.
But Wait… Why Did Samuel Actually Appear?
Here’s where the story gets genuinely puzzling. Most scholars agree that Samuel really did appear – this wasn’t just a clever trick by the medium. But why would God allow this? Why would the prophet who refused to see Saul while alive come to him through the very practice God had forbidden?
The medium herself seems shocked that her séance actually worked. Her terrified scream suggests this isn’t how these things usually went down. It’s as if God hijacked her forbidden ritual for His own purposes.
Wait, That’s Strange…
Samuel delivers the exact same message he’d given Saul while alive – no new information, no special revelation, just the inevitable consequences of choices already made. It’s almost as if God allowed this encounter not to give Saul what he wanted, but to underscore that he’d already heard everything he needed to hear.
Maybe that’s the point. Sometimes God gives us exactly what we’re demanding, not as a blessing, but to show us why we shouldn’t have been demanding it in the first place.
Wrestling with the Text
This passage raises uncomfortable questions about desperation and spiritual manipulation. When we’re terrified and God seems silent, how far are we willing to go to force an answer? Saul’s story suggests that when we abandon God’s prescribed ways of seeking Him, we don’t find better alternatives – we find counterfeits that ultimately confirm our worst fears.
The tragedy is that God hadn’t actually abandoned Saul – He’d simply stopped giving him the guidance Saul had repeatedly ignored. Silence isn’t always absence. Sometimes it’s the natural consequence of refusing to listen when God was speaking clearly.
“When we cut ourselves off from God’s voice, we become vulnerable to every other voice that promises to fill the silence.”
There’s also something heartbreaking about Saul’s final meal. The woman who had risked death to perform this forbidden ritual now shows him more kindness than he’d experienced in years. She feeds him, cares for him, treats him with dignity even as she’s delivering him to his doom. Sometimes the most human moments happen in the most inhuman circumstances.
How This Changes Everything
This isn’t just ancient history – it’s a mirror reflecting our own tendency to seek shortcuts when God’s ways seem too slow or uncertain. When we’re desperate for answers, we become vulnerable to spiritual counterfeits that promise immediate results but deliver ultimate destruction.
The story reveals that our greatest spiritual danger often comes not from obvious evil, but from seeking good things through wrong means. Saul wanted to know God’s will – that’s not wrong. But when God’s prescribed methods didn’t give him the answers he wanted on his timeline, he abandoned them for forbidden alternatives.
It also shows us what happens when fear becomes our primary motivation. Fear made Saul paranoid toward David, murderous toward the priests, and ultimately drove him to this desperate act. When we let fear rather than faith guide our decisions, we end up in places we never intended to go, doing things we once condemned.
Key Takeaway
When God seems silent, the answer isn’t to seek His voice through forbidden means, but to examine whether we’ve been listening when He was speaking through His prescribed ways. Desperation is not a license to abandon faithfulness.
Further Reading
Internal Links:
- 1 Samuel 15:22-23 – Samuel’s earlier warning to Saul about rebellion
- Deuteronomy 18:10-11 – God’s prohibition against consulting the dead
- 1 Samuel 31:1-6 – The fulfillment of Samuel’s prophecy
External Scholarly Resources:
