1 Samuel 28:11

Then said the woman, whom shall I bring up unto thee?.... For such persons, according to their profession, pretended they were able to bring up any of the dead, that he who inquired of them should

Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he said, Bring me up Samuel. Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee?

Whose kindness and compassion to him, as he had formerly experienced, so now he expected it in his deep distress. This practice of divination by the dead, or by the ghosts or souls of dead persons, called up by magical art, was very usual among all nations, and from them Saul learned it.

1 Samuel 28:11 Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he said, Bring me up Samuel.Ver. 11. Bring me up Samuel,] i.e., Spectrum Samuelis, an apparition of Saumel. Saul neglected to hearken to Samuel while he was alive, and now would fain advise with him after his death. Haec est fortuna eorum qui salutaria monita spernunt. Let such look to it as despise wholesome counsel, while they may have it. "The days will come when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it." Wherefore bestir you as good husbands.

(11) Bring me up Samuel.—A remarkable passage in the Babylonian Talmud evidently shows that, at all events in the Rabbinical Schools of a very early date, the bringing up of Samuel was looked upon as owing to the witch’s power. “ A Sadducee once said to Rabbi Abhu, ‘Ye say that the souls of the righteous are treasured up under the throne of glory; how then had the witch of En-dor power to bring up the prophet Samuel by necromancy?’ The Rabbi replied, ‘Because that occurred within twelve months after his death; for we are taught that during twelve months after death the body is preserved, and the soul soars up and down, but that after twelve months the body is destroyed, and the soul goes up, never to return.’”—Treatise Shabbath, fol. 88, Colossians 2. Another Rabbinical tradition, however, seems to limit this near presence of the departed spirit to the body to four days:—“It is a tradition of Ben Kaphra’s. The very height of mourning is not till the third day. For three days the spirit wanders about the sepulchre, expecting if it may return into the body. But when it sees that the form or aspect of the face is changed [on the fourth day], then it hovers no more, but leaves the body to itself. After three days (it is said elsewhere), the countenance is changed.”—From the Bereshith R., p. 1143: quoted by Lightfoot, referred to by Canon Westcott in his commentary on St. John 11:39. Saul’s state of mind on this, almost the eve of his last fatal fight at Gilboa, affords a curious study. He felt himself forsaken of God, and yet, in his deep despair, his mind turns to the friend and guide of his youth, from whom—long before that friend’s death—he had been so hopelessly estranged. There must have been a terrible struggle in the proud king’s heart before he could have brought himself to stoop to ask for assistance from one of that loathed and proscribed class of women who professed to have dealings with familiar spirits and demons. “There is,” once wrote Archbishop Trench, “something unutterably pathetic in the yearning of the dis-anointed king, now in his utter desolation, to exchange words once more with the friend and counsellor of his youth; and if he must hear his doom, to hear it from no other lips but his.”

Verse 11. Whom shall I bring up] The woman certainly meant no more than making her familiar personify whomsoever the querist should wish. In the evocation of spirits this is all that, according to the professed rules of their art, such persons pretend to; for over human souls in paradise or in the infernal regions they have no power. If we allow that there is such an art founded on true principles, all it can pretend to is, to bring up the familiar; cause him when necessary to assume the form and character of some particular person, and to give such notices relative to futurity as he is able to collect. And this even in the cases to which authenticity is generally allowed, is often scanty, vague, and uncertain, for fallen spirits do not abound in knowledge: this is an attribute of God, and rays of this perfection are imparted to pure and holy intelligences; and even Satan himself, as may be seen from most of his temptations, is far from excelling in knowledge. He may be cunning and insidious, but he certainly is not wise and prudent; we in general give this fallen spirit credit for much more wisdom than he possesses.

11. Bring me up Samuel] From Sheol, the realm of departed spirits, which is always spoken of as beneath the earth. The nature of the transaction here recorded is discussed in Additional Note VIII. on p. 244. It is assumed in the notes here that Samuel really appeared and spoke.

Bring me up Samuel - Dr. Trench observes, “All human history has failed to record a despair deeper or more tragic than his, who, having forsaken God and being of God forsaken, is now seeking to move

11. Whom shall I bring up — She assumes to be, and the whole narrative implies that she was, the instrument and medium of all the spiritual phenomena and communications of the occasion.