Bird's-eye view
In this grim and shadowy conclusion to Saul's reign, we find the terrified king at the absolute end of his rope. Having been forsaken by God, receiving only divine silence in response to his inquiries, Saul resorts to the very thing he had outlawed: necromancy. This is not a search for comfort, but a desperate, superstitious grasp for certainty by a man who had long ago rejected the certainty of God's Word. The scene at Endor is the final, pathetic act in the tragedy of Israel's first king. The summoned prophet Samuel offers no new revelation, no last-minute reprieve, but only a stark and terrifying confirmation of the judgment that had already been pronounced. The passage serves as the formal sentencing phase of Saul's covenant lawsuit, where the prophet who anointed him now pronounces his doom. It is a powerful illustration of the principle that when men refuse to hear God's voice in the daylight of His Word, they will eventually find themselves seeking answers in the darkness, only to hear the echo of their own condemnation.
The core of the passage is the unalterable connection between past disobedience and present consequence. Samuel drives the point home with surgical precision: the disaster that is about to befall Saul is the direct, covenantal result of his failure to execute God's fierce wrath on Amalek. This is not arbitrary; it is the playing out of a righteous verdict. Saul's doom, and Israel's defeat with him, is sealed. The passage is a stark warning against treating God as a vending machine for guidance while living in active rebellion against His clear commands. There is no secret knowledge to be gained from a seance that can circumvent the demands of obedience.
Outline
- 1. The Final Confrontation (1 Sam 28:15-19)
- a. Saul's Desperate Plea (1 Sam 28:15)
- b. Samuel's Unflinching Rebuke (1 Sam 28:16)
- c. The Judgment Reaffirmed (1 Sam 28:17)
- d. The Cause of Judgment Declared (1 Sam 28:18)
- e. The Sentence Pronounced (1 Sam 28:19)
Context In 1 Samuel
This passage is the climax of Saul's long, downward spiral that began in earnest with his unlawful sacrifice at Gilgal (1 Samuel 13) and was sealed by his disobedience in the war against the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15). It was after the Amalek incident that Samuel declared, "the LORD has rejected you from being king over Israel" and "has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day." The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and came upon David (1 Samuel 16). What follows is years of Saul's paranoid, murderous pursuit of David, all while the Philistine threat looms. Now, on the eve of his final battle at Mount Gilboa, the Philistine army is mustered in force, and Saul is paralyzed by fear. He has inquired of the Lord through all the legitimate channels, dreams, Urim, and prophets, but has been met with silence (1 Sam 28:6). This divine silence is itself a form of judgment. His turn to a medium at Endor is the final act of a man who has completely forsaken the covenant. This scene is his last interaction with Samuel, the prophet of God, and it serves to bookend his reign with the same voice of judgment that had marked its turning point.
Key Issues
- Necromancy and God's Sovereignty
- The Silence of God as Judgment
- The Unchangeable Nature of God's Verdict
- Corporate Solidarity in Judgment
- The Connection Between Disobedience and Destruction
- The Nature of the Afterlife (Sheol)
The Echo in the Darkness
One of the central questions that arises here is whether this was "really" Samuel. The text presents it as Samuel, and the message delivered is perfectly consistent with everything Samuel said in life. There is no reason to doubt that God, in His sovereignty, can do what He wants. He is not bound by the normal course of events. The witch may have been expecting to conjure a familiar demon, a cheap imitation, but God hijacked her satanic ritual in order to deliver His own terrifying message directly. He commandeered the enemy's communication system to broadcast His own verdict.
Saul was looking for a different word, a new word, a loophole. But all he got was an echo of the old word, the one he had disobeyed. He got no new information. He was simply reminded of the sentence that had been passed on him years before in 1 Samuel 15. This is a profound lesson. When we disobey the clear, revealed will of God, we must not expect some secret, back-channel communication to get us off the hook. The word of God stands. Seeking guidance from forbidden sources will not yield a new message of grace, but only a terrifying reinforcement of the judgment we already know we deserve.
Verse by Verse Commentary
15 Then Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” And Saul answered, “I am greatly distressed, for the Philistines are waging war against me, and God has turned away from me and no longer answers me, either by the hand of the prophets or by dreams; therefore I have called you, that you may make known to me what I should do.”
The conversation begins with a grim accusation from the prophet. Saul, who would not listen to Samuel in life, now disturbs his rest in death. Saul's reply is a litany of self-pity. He is greatly distressed. He lays out his predicament: the Philistines are attacking, and God is silent. Notice how Saul frames the problem. He sees God's silence as the issue, not his own sin. He still thinks of God as a resource to be tapped, a strategic advisor to be consulted. He has tried all the approved methods, and now he is trying a forbidden one, but the goal is the same: to get information, to find out "what I should do." He wants a battle plan, not repentance. He is looking for a technique to solve his problem, but his problem is not tactical, it is covenantal. He has broken faith with the God of Israel, and now he wants advice from God's dead prophet on how to manage the consequences.
16 And Samuel said, “Why then do you ask me, since Yahweh has turned away from you and has become your adversary?
Samuel's response is devastatingly logical. "Why are you asking me?" The question cuts right through Saul's superstitious maneuvering. Samuel is God's prophet. If God Himself has gone silent, if God has become Saul's adversary, what good does Saul think it will do to ask God's representative? There is no court of appeals. You cannot go over God's head by summoning His prophet from the grave. Samuel makes it plain that he and Yahweh are on the same side, and that side is now arrayed against Saul. The king of Israel is now officially an enemy of the God of Israel. This is the terrifying reality of covenantal apostasy. God is not a neutral party; if you are not for Him, He is against you.
17 So Yahweh has done accordingly as He spoke by my hand, for Yahweh has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor, to David.
Here is the echo. This is not new information. It is simply a statement of fact, a confirmation of the verdict from 1 Samuel 15:28. The tearing of the kingdom is not a future possibility; it is a past and settled reality. Yahweh has done it. Samuel reminds Saul that the words he spoke in life were not his own opinions, but the very word of God: "He spoke by my hand." And that word has now come to its fruition. The kingdom has been given to David. Saul is a lame duck king, a hollow shell, going through the motions of a reign that has already been judicially terminated in the courts of heaven.
18 As you did not listen to the voice of Yahweh and did not execute His burning anger on Amalek, so Yahweh has done this thing to you this day.
This is the grounds for the verdict. The cause is explicitly linked to the effect. Why is this happening? Because of a specific, historical act of disobedience. Saul's failure was twofold: he did not listen to the voice of Yahweh, and consequently, he did not execute His burning anger on Amalek. This was not a minor infraction. It was a failure to carry out a sentence of holy war, a failure to be the instrument of God's justice against a people under God's curse. Saul's sin was to substitute his own judgment for God's clear command. He thought he knew better. He spared Agag and the best of the livestock, cloaking his disobedience in the pious-sounding excuse of sacrificing to the Lord. But God had demanded obedience, not sacrifice. And now, the bill for that disobedience has come due. The judgment he failed to execute on Amalek is now being executed on him.
19 Moreover Yahweh will also give over Israel along with you into the hands of the Philistines, therefore tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. Indeed Yahweh will give over the camp of Israel into the hands of the Philistines!”
The sentence is pronounced with chilling specificity. First, the corporate consequence: Israel will be given over along with you. The king's sin brings disaster upon the people. This is the principle of federal headship. The nation is bound up with its king, and they fall together. Second, the personal consequence: "tomorrow you and your sons will be with me." This means they will be in Sheol, the realm of the dead. It is a prophecy of their imminent deaths on the battlefield. There is no ambiguity, no room for hope. The verdict is final, and the execution is scheduled for the next day. The message ends with a repetition of the national disaster, hammering home the totality of the defeat. Saul came seeking a strategy for victory and was given a death sentence.
Application
The story of Saul's last night is a permanent warning against the kind of religion that wants God's benefits without God's authority. Saul wanted a word of guidance, but he did not want the God who gives it. He was happy to obey God when it was convenient or aligned with his own thinking, but when God's command was hard, like the command to utterly destroy Amalek, he flinched and substituted his own wisdom. This is the root of all apostasy.
We are tempted in the same way. We want God to fix our problems, to give us direction for our careers, to bless our families. But do we want to obey His commands about sexual purity, about forgiveness, about honesty in our business dealings? Do we listen to His whole counsel, or do we just pick and choose? When we find ourselves in distress, is our first instinct to turn to God in genuine repentance, or is it to cast about for some technique, some book, some conference, some experience that will give us the answer we want to hear without requiring us to change?
When God seems silent, we should first examine ourselves for unconfessed sin and disobedience. The answer is not to turn to the modern equivalents of the witch of Endor, be it worldly psychology, horoscopes, or a pragmatic, results-oriented approach to the Christian life. The answer is to return to the Word we have already been given. The gospel tells us that while we were all like Saul, enemies of God destined for judgment, another King, a better Head, took that judgment for us. Jesus Christ did not flinch from executing God's wrath, but instead bore it all on the cross. He is the king who obeyed perfectly, even unto death, so that a disobedient people might be forgiven and brought back into fellowship with God. Our hope is not in getting a new word from the darkness, but in clinging by faith to the Word made flesh, who has already conquered death and the grave.