1 Samuel 28:8-12: a reflection

8Saul disguised himself and put on other clothing, and went, he and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night. Then he said, “Please consult for me by the familiar spirit, and bring me up whomever I shall name to you.” 9The woman said to him, “Behold, you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off those who have familiar spirits and the wizards out of the land. Why then do you lay a snare for my life, to cause me to die?” 10Saul swore to her by the LORD, saying, “As the LORD lives, no punishment will happen to you for this thing.” 11Then the woman said, “Whom shall I bring up to you?” He said, “Bring Samuel up for me.” 12When the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice; and the woman spoke to Saul, saying, “Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul!”

This is one of the saddest scenes in Saul's tragic story. Facing battle and terrified, Saul has sought guidance from God and received no answer. So he does something desperate and forbidden: he disguises himself and goes by night to a medium, the very kind of practitioner he had once driven out of the land, asking her to call up the dead prophet Samuel. A king who had once known God's guidance now creeps in the dark to seek counsel from a source God had explicitly forbidden.

The tragedy is not mainly the strangeness of the scene but what it reveals about Saul's heart. When God seemed silent, Saul did not humble himself and return to God; he turned instead to the occult, seeking in the darkness what he would not seek rightly in the light. His desperation led him not back to God but further from him, to forbidden means. It is the portrait of a man who has drifted so far that, in his fear, he reaches for anything except genuine repentance.

There is a warning here for the times when God seems silent and we are afraid. The temptation in such moments is to seek answers anywhere, in forbidden practices, in whatever promises to lift the uncertainty. Saul shows where that leads: further into darkness. When God seems silent, the answer is not to turn to forbidden sources but to humble yourself and return to him, to wait, to repent, to keep seeking him rightly. Do not reach in the dark for what God has forbidden. Seek him, and wait for his light.

Lord, when you seemed silent, Saul crept in the dark to a forbidden source rather than humbling himself and returning to you. Guard me from that path. When you seem silent and I am afraid, keep me from seeking answers in forbidden places. Help me instead to humble myself, to wait, to repent, and to keep seeking you rightly, trusting that your light will come. Amen.