ESV Global Study Bible :: Footnotes for 1 Samuel 28

1 Sam 28:1–2 After David has been with Achish for over a year, the Philistines decide to attack Israel. Apparently they wanted to gain control over the northern Jezreel Valley, a wide, agriculturally rich plain. you and your men are to go out with me. David, as a paid soldier for Achish, is naturally expected to participate in the attack.

1 Sam 28:3–25 The story now shifts to King Saul’s visit to the medium at En-dor and returns to David and the Philistines in 29:1. Saul faces overwhelming odds as the Philistines prepare to attack. In desperation he apparently decides that the only one who can guide him is the deceased prophet Samuel. This account shows that in some circumstances a medium may be able to contact the dead, but it stresses the wrongness of the practice. First Chronicles mentions this incident as one reason for Saul’s death (1 Chron. 10:13–14).

1 Sam 28:3–4 Saul had put the mediums and the necromancers out of the land. Mosaic laws forbade mediums and necromancers, who consult the spirits of the dead, as well as other forms of divination (Lev. 19:31; 20:27). Saul’s action in banishing them shows that he knows this, yet now he will go ahead and consult a medium anyway.

1 Sam 28:6 By dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets were the allowable means of determining the will of the Lord. The Lord did not answer because he had rejected Saul from being king (15:23).

1 Sam 28:7–8 En-dor was 4.5 miles (7.2 km) northeast of Shunem, where the Philistines were encamped, so it was on the other side of the enemy from Saul. He was risking his life by going there, so he disguised himself and went by night.

1 Sam 28:12 she cried out with a loud voice. Perhaps Samuel’s appearance surprised the woman and she realized something was happening outside of her control. Readers are not told how the woman realized who Saul was.

1 Sam 28:13–14 A god is a term used of the spirits of the dead in ancient Near Eastern texts.

1 Sam 28:15–19 Then Samuel said to Saul. The Bible text assumes that the spirit raised by the medium really is Samuel. He is called “Samuel” in vv. 15–16. He speaks much as he had spoken to Saul during his lifetime (compare vv. 16–18 with 15:18, 26–28: in both places, Samuel describes David as Saul’s “neighbor”). He uses the name of the Lord seven times, and adds the true prophecy that Saul and his sons will die. An evil spirit would not deliver a true prophecy or true words to Saul, as Samuel does here. That the woman’s actions brought Samuel up is implied by 28:15, Why have you disturbed me? Therefore, whatever the limits on a medium’s power normally were, in this case the Lord let her raise the spirit of Samuel himself.

1 Sam 28:19 Be with me may simply mean that Saul will die. Some think it implies that Saul’s spirit will join Samuel’s in the place of the dead, perhaps even among those whose sins are forgiven.

1 Sam 28:24 A fattened calf is a stall-fed calf that was being prepared for eating, rather than a pasture-fed calf.

1 Sam 28:25 Saul went away, back to Gilboa. Saul apparently accepted that his death was the unchangeable will of the Lord. He does not try to escape the battle on the next day.