Tackling Tradition 90: The Witch‘s Familiar

Yes, you’re right, people don’t pay attention to the text, & if you truly think this is Samuel himself, then you are sorely mistaken. 

The text is very clear that *Saul* believed the spirit to be Samuel, but it doesn’t state that the spirit she saw was Samuel. 

The king said to her, “Do not be afraid. What do you see?” And the woman said to Saul, “I see a god coming up out of the earth.” 14 He said to her, “What is his appearance?” And she said, “An old man is coming up, and he is wrapped in a robe.” And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground and paid homage. (1 Samuel 28:13–14, ESV).

The witch summons a familiar spirit that she herself calls a god & looks like a man in a robe.   Saul himself doesn’t see the apparition.   When the text says that he knew it was Samuel, he simply drew a conclusion about who it was based on the witch’s testimony. 

Samuel himself was not located under the earth.  He would most certainly have been above the earth, & as a prophet who exercised all 3 sets of keys (prophet, priest, & king/judge) who had equated rebellion & witchcraft when rebuking Saul in Chapter 15, he himself would never have appeared nor been allowed to appear.  

The proper conclusion is that the apparition is either an angel whom the LORD sent or a demon who responded to the call of a witch .  It rises from (under) the earth, the place where witchcraft (in contrast to sorcery) chains/binds itself.  

The other alternative is that the story is semi-fictional & it was indeed Samuel, insofar as in fictions that might happen.   

 In that event, the text is telling us that Samuel was one to tell people the truth even if it hurt, & once he was dead, Saul, whose kingdom was slowly slipping away probably couldn’t find anyone like Samuel to tell him the truth & intercede on his behalf as to his relationship with God & governance of the kingdom; so he resorted to witchcraft & wound up hearing the truth from a witch who got it from her own imagination or more likely from one or more familiar spirits who replied just as Balaam told Balak the truth in Numbers.