Having compelled David to assume the position of an outlaw, around Avhora gathered a number of turbu- lent and desperate characters, Saul might persuade him- self that he was justified in bestowing the hand of Da- vid's wife on another, and in making expeditions to ap- prehend and destroy him. A portion of the people were base enough to minister to the evil passions of Saul (1 Sam. xxiii, 19; xxvi, 1), and others, perhaps, might color their fear by the pretence of conscience (xxiii, 12). But his sparing Saul's life twice, when he was complete- ly in his power, must have destroyed all color of right in Saul's conduct in the minds of the people, as it also did in his own conscience (xxiv, 3-7; xxvi), which two passages, though presenting many points of similarity, cannot be referred to the same occasion without deny- ing to the narrative all historic accuracy and trust- worthiness. Though thus degraded and paralyzed by the indulgence of malevolent passions, Saul still acted with vigor in repelling the enemies of his country, and in other affairs wherein his jealousy of David was not concerned (xxiii, 27, 28). In Saul's better moments, also, he never lost the strong affection which he had contracted for DaviiJ. " He loved him greatly" (xvi, 21). " Saul would let him go no more home to his father's house" (xviii, 2). "Wherefore cometh not the son of Jesse to meat?" (xx, 27). " Is this thy voice, my son David ? . . . Return, my son David ; blessed be thou, my son David"' (xxiv, IG; xxvi, 17, 25). Occasionally, too, his prophetical gift returned, blended with his mad- ness. He "prophesied" or "raved" in the midst of his house — " he prophesied and lay down naked all day and all night" at liamah (xix, 24). But his acts of fierce, wild zeal increased. The massacre of the priests, with all their families — the massacre, perhaps at the same time, of the (iibeonites (2 Sam. xxi, 1), and the violent extir|)ation of the necromancers (1 Sam. xxviii, 3, 9), are all of the same kind.
G. Saul's Last Offence and Deaf//. — At length the monarchy itself, which he had raised up, broke down under the weakness of its head. The Philistines re- entered the country, and with their chariots and horses occupied the ])lain of Esdraelon. Their camp was pitched on the southern slope of the range now called
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Little Hermon, by Shunem. On the opposite side, on Jlount Gilboa, Avas the Israelitish army, clinging, as usu- al, to the heights which were their safety. It was near the spring oF Gideon's encampment, hence called the spring of Ilarod, or "trembling;" and now the name as- sumed an evil omen, and the heart of the king as he pitched his camp there "trembled exceedingly" (1 Sam. xxviii, 5). The measure of Saul's iniquity, now almost full, was completed by an act of direct treason against Jehovah the God of Israel (Exod. xxii, 18; Lev. xix, 31; XX, 27; Deut. xviii, 10, 11). Saul, probably in a fit of zeal and perhaps as some atonement for his dis- obedience in other respects, had executed the penalty of the law on those who practised necromanc\' and div- ination (1 Sam. xxviii, 3). Now, however, in the loss of all the usual means of consulting the divine will, he determined, with that wayward mixture of superstition and religion which marked his whole career, to apply to one of the necromancers who had escaped his perse- cution. Forsaken of God, who gave him no oracles, and rendered, by a course of wickedness, both desperate and infatuated, he requested his attendants to seek him a woman who had a familiar spirit (which is the loose rendering in the English Bible of the expression oc- curring twice in ver. 7, "iX ri5"3 ri'jN, a woman a mist7-ess of Ob; Sept. tyyaorp/^uS'oc, i. e. a ventrilo- quist; Vulg. liahens Pythonem, i. e. a Pythoness [see Necuomancy]), that he might obtain from her that direction which Jehovah refused to afford him. She was a woman living at Endor, on the other side of Lit- tle Hermon. According to the Hebrew tradition men- tioned by Jerome, she was the mother of Abner, and hence her escape from the general massacre of the nec- romancers (see Leo AUatius, l)e. Eiigastrimuiho, cap. 6 in Critici Sacri, vol. ii). Volumes have been written on the question whether in the scene that follows we are to understand an imposture or a real apparition of Sam- uel. Eustathius and most of the fathers take the for- mer view^ (representing it, however, as a ligment of the devil) ; Origen, the latter view. Augustine wavers (ibid, ut supra, p. 10G2-1114). The Sept. of 1 Sam. xxvii, 7 (by the above translation) and the A. V. (by its omission of "himself in xxviii, 14, and insertion of "when" in ver. 12) lean to the former. Joscphus (who pronounces a glowing eulogy on the woman. Ant. vi, 14, 2, 3) and the Sept. of 1 Chron. x, 13, to the latter. At this distance of time it is impossible to determine the relative amount of fraud or of reality, though the obvi- ous meaning of tlie narrative itself tends to the hypoth- esis of some kind of apparition. She recognises the disguised king first by the appearance of Samuel, seem- ingly from his threatening aspect or tone as towards his enemy, Saul apparently saw nothing, but listened to her description of a godlike figure of an aged man wrapped round with the royal or sacred robe. On hearing the denunciation which the apparition convey- ed, Saul fell the wliole length of his gigantic stature (see I Sam. xxviii, 20. margin) on the ground, and re- mained motionless till the woman and his servants forced him to eat.