The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Samuel — Section 513

the risk of his life, to seek help from a sor- Vers. 15, 16.-Why hast thou disquieted ceress, he bears it all that he may at least me l I. e. Why h'lSt thou caused me to be for a, few minutes see the spirit of the true disturbed by th~ incantations of this woman r though stern monitor, whose memory once Neither by prophets nor by dreams. It is again filled his whole heart. suggested in the Talmud (Berach xii. 2) that Ver. 12.-When the woman saw Samuel, Saul omitted all mention of the Urim from she cried with a loud voice. Evidently shame at having murdered the priests. Is the last thing that sho had expected was become thine enemy. By a slight difference that anything else should happen than the of reading the Septuagint have, "is on the usual illusion by which she imposed upon side of thy neighbour." her victims; nor is it certain that anything Vera. 17-19.-Jehovah bath done to him. else did happen. Her assertion that she saw Rather, '' hath wrought for himself;" but th~ Samuel was probably false ; and it was in LXX., Vulgate, and some l\ISS. read "bath feigned excitement that she cried out, Why done to thee," as in ver. 18. As he spake by hart thou deceived me ! for thou art Saul. me. See eh. xv. 28. Saul's rebellion is there She could not but have noticed the tall said, in ver. 23, to be a crime as great as stature, the ·dignified manner, and also the the witchcraft which he was at that time so intense excitement of her strange visitor ; zealously punishing; here, where the sentence and when he bade her call up the spirit of is being carried into execution, Saul has him- Samuel, she must have been dull indeed not self become guilty of what in his better to know who the stranger was. hours he so abominated. Jehovah will also Ver. 13.-What sawest thou 1 Thus far deliver Israel with thee. Rather, "wi11 Saul had seen nothing ; and as the words deliver Israel also with thee," i. e. the natiou literally are What seest thou? it is plain is to share thy punishment. To-morrow that she had not gone into another room, ehalt thou and thy sons be with me. I. e. as some have supposed. The vision was shall be dead. Whence this voice came it is entirely unsubstantial, and Saul, hearing her difficult to say. St. Augustine thought that cry, and observing her excitement, and her the woman really conjured up a demon, who steady gaze upon some object, asked what took the form of Samuel. 11Iaimonidcs treats that object was. Probably she was at some the whole as the effer.t of Saul's diseased distance from him, as was no doubt her imagination ; while many modern comment- custom when performing her incantations, in ators regard it as a well-played piece of order that what she did might not be too jugglery on the part of the woman, who closely observed; probably, too, she burnt recognised Saul at once on his entrance, but odours, and surrounded herself ";th the smoke professecl not to know him till his namo was of incense. In answer to Saul she says, " I revealed to her by the pretenrled apparition, see Elohim ascending out of the earth." As in whose name she reproached him for his the participle is plural, she does not mean crimes, announced to him, what now all were God; nor, as it wns a single appearance, is the convinced of, that David was to be bis suc- rendering gods conect. What she means is cessor, and foretold his defeat and death. In that she saw some grand supernatural ap- the face of such a passage as Deut. xviii. 10 pearance rising out of tho ground, which she -12 wo cannot believe that the Bible would calls a god in a general way, without attach- set before us an instance of witchcraft em- ing any very exact meaning to the term. ployed with the Divine sanction for holy Ver. 14.-What form is he ofl Rather, purposes; but we can easily believe that the "What is his aspect 1" i. e. his look. As woman wouhl gladly take a bitter revenge on the term a god conveyed no other idea tha,n the man "·ho had cruelly pnt to death all that she had seen something majestic, S:1ul persons reputed to havo such powers as those asks for a more exact description. She to which sho laid claim. The object of the answers that it was an old man clad in a narrative is plainly to set beforo us tho com- robe, m&il (see on eh. ii. 19). Samuel seems pleteness of Saul's moral downfall and de- never to have worn the prophetic •mantle basement. Here is the man endowed with (see on eh. xv. 27), but always the mei'l. so many and so great gifts of genius, and who There was nothing, therefore, distinctive in in so many thi.i1gs started so well and behaved the dress; but as she says that she has seen so nobly, the victim of a despairing melan- an old man, Saul concludes that he for whom choly ; his conscience is blnckened with the he had oskcd had appeared to him. Instead wholesale massacre of the priesthood, his of Saul perceived, the Hebrew has "Saul imagination is ever brooding over the sick knew." There is nothing to prove that Saul fancy of treason plotted by his son-in-law, really saw anything; all that is said is that whom now he supposes to be in the Philistine by the woman's description '' Saul recognised camp; his enemies have inrndccl his tcITitory the.t what she had seen was Samuel, and ho in extraordinary numbers and upon new bowed himself to the ground, and made ground; to him it seems as if they have obeisance." come to dethrone him an,\ place his crown on  THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL. roe. xxvm. l-2&.