The Medium Of Endor

“Therefore I have summoned you to tell me what I shall do.” – 1 Samuel 28:15

This is certainly a strange passage. Saul, afraid of the Philistines, reaches a new low: unable to hear from God by other means, he consults a medium, breaking a law that he himself had set (28:3) and which directly violated the law of God (Deuteronomy 18:9-11). He goes to the trouble of disguising himself and traveling past the Philistine camp to reach Endor, and stranger yet, Samuel appears from the dead. Most commentators believe this truly is Samuel; it is unclear whether he is summoned by God or by necromancy or how much the medium knows. 

But what is most striking to me about this episode is how clearly it fulfills words Samuel spoke to Saul the last day Saul saw him alive: “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king” (1 Samuel 15:22-23). Divination is abhorrent to God because it is idolatry, a rejection of God’s word in seeking supernatural guidance elsewhere. The fact that Saul resorts to such means shows us something: he is desperate to know the future. He is desperate to know what will happen. He wants to be told what he should do, but he doesn’t really have a heart of obedience. He disobeys in the worst ways just to ask.

How many of us have said, “I just want to know God’s will! I just want to know what God wants me to do. If he would just tell me, that’s all it would take.” We ask because we want a God we can “summon” for information. We are not asking for wisdom, really: we are asking for knowledge, a specific kind of knowledge about the future. We want outward data, but God cares more about inward direction. We listen for future answers, but God desires the kind of listening that is lived out in present obedience. It is that kind of obedience that changes who we are, and God ultimately cares more about who we are than just what we do. What good is it knowing which job to pick if you’re still idolizing it? Which person to marry if you’re still selfish? If God told us what he wanted, would we really do it? Has not God already told us what his will is for us, all throughout the Bible, implicitly and in many places, explicitly? 

The irony is that Saul goes to desperate, criminal measures only to hear from Samuel the same thing he’s heard in the past. There’s little new information offered, and what is new is bad. “Sheol” means “the asking place,” and “Saul” means “the asked for one”: in a grim play on words, we learn the asking place will now receive the asked-for one. Knowledge without obedience has only led Saul to death. Chronologically, this story is out of order: it is sandwiched prematurely into the story of David as he lives with the Philistines (27:1-28:2 on one side, 28:3-25 on the other), which brings out interesting comparisons. Both David and Saul are outside of the Israelite camp, but while the medium at Endor asks Saul, “why have you deceived me?” the prince of Gath tells David, “I know that you are as blameless in my sight as an angel of God” (29:9). We see from these stories that true future life and victory comes when we are willing to search out any rebellion or presumption in our hearts, and to live out a listening obedience in the present.