Scripture Daily

Context No. 3832 of 4322 · 1 Samuel

Context · Reflection

1 Samuel 28:13-19: in context

13The king said to her, “Don’t be afraid! What do you see?” The woman said to Saul, “I see a god coming up out of the earth.” 14He said to her, “What does he look like?” She said, “An old man comes up. He is covered with a robe.” Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground, and showed respect. 15Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me, to bring me up?” Saul answered, “I am very distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God has departed from me, and answers me no more, by prophets, or by dreams. Therefore I have called you, that you may make known to me what I shall do.” 16Samuel said, “Why then do you ask me, since the LORD has departed from you and has become your adversary? 17The LORD has done to you as he spoke by me. The LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor, even to David. 18Because you didn’t obey the LORD’s voice, and didn’t execute his fierce wrath on Amalek, therefore the LORD has done this thing to you today. 19Moreover the LORD will deliver Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines; and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The LORD will deliver the army of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines.”

This is one of the saddest scenes in Saul's tragic decline. Facing the Philistine army and terrified, Saul finds that God no longer answers him, by prophet, dream, or any means, and in his desperation he does the very thing he had once outlawed: he consults a medium to call up the dead prophet Samuel. But the word he receives is only a confirmation of his doom.

Behind this desperate act lies the real tragedy: God had departed from Saul because Saul had persistently refused to obey him. Now, in his crisis, rather than turning back to God in humble repentance, Saul turns to forbidden and dark means to find an answer. It is a picture of a heart that, cut off from God by its own disobedience, seeks anywhere but the one place it should go: back to God himself. When God seems silent to us, there is a right response and a wrong one. Saul's example warns us not to turn in desperation to darkness or forbidden shortcuts, but to turn back, in humble repentance, to the God we have neglected.

When God seems silent, do I turn back to him in humble repentance, or am I tempted, like Saul, to seek answers anywhere but the one place I should, in forbidden shortcuts rather than a return to God?

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