Why Is the Woman of Endor Portrayed as a Heroine?

I. Introduction

Having failed to obtain an oracle from Yahweh on the eve of the fateful battle against the Philistines, Saul visited a female medium at Endor for the purpose of divination through the spirit of Samuel. The most troubling aspect of this episode is the positive portrayal of the female medium not only in her ability to bring up Samuel’s ghost from the underworld but also in her selfless efforts to restore exhausted Saul to strength after séance. No less troubling is the fact that Samuel’s authentic prophecy sits in the narrative frame of necromantic divination that Deuteronomy strongly condemns. To top it off, the invoked Samuel does not accuse Saul of the sin of divination, nor does the narrator appear to condemn the female medium for her role in it. ¹ This paper is an attempt at answering these questions. I will argue that to answer these questions properly one needs to differentiate between the two processes involved in necromancy; namely, invocation of a ghost and divination by it. The narrator deliberately makes a distinction between the two in the text, which reflects his two-track approach to the cult of the dead practiced in ancient Israel. ²

II. Differentiation between Invocation and Divination

There are many textual details that warrant the differentiation between invocation of the dead and divination by invoked ghosts. ³ First, the narrator divides the scene of séance into two sections: one concerns the female medium’s invocation of Samuel’s spirit (vv. 8–14) and the other concerns Saul’s divination through the invoked spirit (vv. 15–19). The double mention of Saul’s prostration, whether out of fear (v. 14b) or in exhaustion (20a), clearly marks off the latter from the former. Some scholars presume that the woman is still playing an active role in the latter scene of divination, while others do not recognize any further role of the woman beyond invoking Samuel. While we may not be able to settle this issue definitively, the narrator provides sufficient clues to warrant the opinion that the woman was not a participant in the dialogue between Saul and Samuel. Note that the narrator does not explicitly mention any role of the woman in verses 15–19 where the dialogue between the living and the dead takes place. ⁴ He could have easily done it, but he does not as if to imply that the medium’s role was restricted to merely invoking the spirit. Further, the narrator closes the scene of necromantic divination by noting, ‘the woman came to Saul’ (ותבוא האשה אל שאול v. 21a), as if she had been absent from the dialogue scene. Furthermore, later in the story she interacts nonchalantly with Saul as if she were unaware of Samuel’s message of doom that had devastated Saul. She innocently encourages the doomed-to-death Saul to eat and regain his strength. All these combine to show that the narrator differentiates between the two stages of necromancy, namely invocation and divination, and also that the narrator appears to take different attitudes towards them. If his objection is directed only to divination, and not to invocation (and I believe so), it is understandable why neither the narrator nor Samuel condemns the female ‘witch,’ who was after all not involved in the divination.

The assertion that the woman’s role was restricted to the invocation of Samuel and that she was not involved in the subsequent dialogue between Samuel and Saul may be corroborated by the consistent title ascribed to the woman in the story. The narrator introduces her as אשת בעלת אוב in v. 7. According to McCarter, this ‘hapax’ phrase is a conflation of the two terms: אשת אוב ‘the woman of a ghost’ and בעלת אוב ‘mistress of a ghost.’ ⁵ If so, it is arguable that the editor’s subsequent reference to the female necromancer as האשה ‘the woman’ (9 times) is a shorthand for אשת אוב. Now, considering the editor’s differentiation of the two stages of necromancy, one may discern a nuance of a caretaker of ghosts (cf. Akk. pāqidu) in אשת אוב and a nuance of manipulator in בעלת אוב. This fits the woman’s later role with respect to Saul who had become for all practical purposes a dead person. Thus, one may argue that the editor’s consistent reference to her as האשה intimates that in this episode she was portrayed mainly as the invoker and caretaker of a ghost, and not a manipulator of the invoked ghost.

The narrator’s differentiation between two aspects of necromancy in 1 Sam 28:3–25 is also implied in the use of technical terms for necromancy. In verse 8c Saul said: ‘Divine for me by a ghost. Bring up for me whom I shall name you’ (קסומי נא לי באוב והעלי לי את אשר אמר אליך). Here QSM is a generic term for divination, not restricted to necromancy. The narrator, however, adds bāʾôb ‘by a ghost’ in order to specify the means by which to divine. ⁶ HʿLY (Hiphil of ʿLY ‘to go up’), on the other hand, is a technical term for the invocation of the dead and it is never used elsewhere in the context of divination. ⁷ Its antonym YRD ‘to go down’ is attested to in a Ugaritic funerary text (KTU 1.161) to denote the return of the deceased kings to the underworld after having been invoked to participate in funerary rites. But no indication of necromantic divination can be detected in that Ugaritic text. ⁸ This careful use of technical terms in v. 8 seems intended specifically to differentiate between the two aspects of necromancy, namely, invocation and divination, although the immediate context may incline the unsuspecting reader to take them as the one and the same process of necromancy. In this regard, it is appropriate to recall that Saul had made clear his intention of necromantic divination when he asked his servants to seek out for him a female medium (אשת בעלת אוב): ‘So that I will go to her and inquire through her’ (v. 7a ואכלה אליה ואדרשה בה). The verb DRŠ is another technical term for divination and is used in Deut 18:11 to describe the divination by the dead (דרש אל המתים). ⁹

III. Denouncing Divination

Not only does the narrator differentiate between invocation and divination, but he goes further to denounce the latter. He does this specifically by showing that Saul’s attempt at divination through a ghost does not succeed. Saul’s purpose of resorting to divination is not simply to ‘know’ the future, but to ‘manipulate’ it.

As Saul went to consult the woman he had hoped for a different message. He did not go merely to find out about his future as Craffert (1999:67) believes. The mere knowledge of the future would not have helped Saul. Saul went because he hoped to get advice for the battle against the Philistines and to manipulate his fate. However, Saul failed. ¹⁰

One goes to a diviner not simply to be informed of one’s fate, but also to change it for the better. This is reflected in the ‘problem to solution’ plot in the incubation (dream divination) type-scene, where the motif of séance is followed by descriptions of how the incubant’s problem is solved, namely, how an oracular command is carried out or how a favorable prophecy comes to fruition. ¹¹ The same applies to solicited prophecy in ancient Israel. ¹² For instance, when David inquired of Yahweh whether he should pursue and overtake the Amalekites who had raided his city in Ziklag, Yahweh not only answered positively to David’s request for divine permission but also prophesied, if not promised, his success. Unlike Saul in Endor, we may argue that David succeeded in his attempt to ‘inquire of Yahweh’. Thus, divination can be said to be successful only when the inquirer’s problem is solved through the practice. But there is no movement from a problem to a solution in 1 Sam 28:3–25. Saul could not get his problem solved through necromancy. His problem is made explicit at v. 5: that is an extreme fear of the Philistine army. ¹³ He sought divine instruction to turn around the situation and to manipulate the result of the following day’s battle. This intent of Saul is verbalized by Saul himself in v. 15b:

‘I am in great distress. The Philistines are fighting against me.… So I called out to you that you may teach me what I should do’ (italics added).

But the ghost invoked does not yield to Saul’s plea, namely, does not allow himself to be manipulated by the inquirer. ¹⁴ Even after the appearance of ‘gods’ (אלהים v. 13) and his private conversation with the ‘divine’ Samuel (two important aspects in the séance scene), Saul was still in great, if not greater, distress in vv. 20–21 and was no wiser as to what to do to turn the situation around in his favor. ¹⁵ This is expressed in the symbolic image of ‘night’: ‘the same night they got up and left’ (v. 25: italics added). The fact that Saul walked into the darkness of the night implies Saul’s failure to solve his problem through necromancy. The narrator condemns the practice of necromancy by showing that it does not work and that anyone who resorts to it must die.

The inefficacy of necromancy is intimated also by some details in the text. First, the narrator mentions the woman crying with a loud voice in the process of invoking a ghost. In Mesopotamian records of necromancy, the cry of a ghost during the necromancy is a sign of the imminent danger for the inquirer. ¹⁶ By changing the cry of the ghost to that of the female necromancer, the narrator attempts to achieve two things at once. He not only minimizes the medium’s initiative in the process of necromancy by portraying her as being taken by surprise, but also gives an ominous sign of the failure of the process. Second, the irritated response of awakened Samuel to Saul is also a bad omen for the process of divination: ‘Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?’ (v. 15). Invoking the dead by name is a positive thing in the context of ancestor worship, because it is both a way of the living venerating the dead and a way of the dead perpetuating their post-mortem existence. But when awakened, Samuel responds to Saul as if he responded to a tomb robber. ¹⁷ This serves as a subtle foreshadowing of Saul’s failure to solve his problem through necromancy. Third, verse 20 includes yet another indicator of the inefficacy of necromantic divination. Immediately after the encounter with the ghost of Samuel, Saul falls to the ground because he is physically and emotionally exhausted. Apart from the fact that the verb NPL ‘to fall’ anticipates Saul’s ‘falling’ in the upcoming battle, one may note the motif of Saul’s exhaustion as a proof that the séance with Samuel has gone awry. Saul’s loss of all strength serves as a foil for the motif of mood change which serves as a propitious sign for the inquirer’s fate. ¹⁸ For instance, in Tablet IX of Gilgamesh Epic, Gilgamesh arrives one night at a mountain in sorrow and fear, because of the loss of his friend Enkidu and the dangers lurking in his journey to Uta-Napišti. That night he had a dream. Although its content is not preserved, it certainly brought about a change in Gilgamesh’s mood. It dispelled his fear and made him happy. ¹⁹ Then we hear later that Gilgamesh succeeded in meeting Uta-Napišti. A similar motif is discernible in the story of Jacob in Genesis 28. When Jacob arrives at dusk ‘at a certain place’, he was worried and afraid for many reasons. He lay down in that place to have a dream. The change of mood in Jacob is subtly registered in verses 16–17: ‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.… How awesome is this place!’ This motif of change of mood is replaced by the narrator with a motif of exhaustion in 1 Sam 28:20. This is a certain sign of Saul’s abortive divination. ²⁰

The strongest condemnation of divination derives from the intertextual connection by the narrator with the Mosaic proscription of necromantic divination (Lev 19:31; 20:6, 27; Deut 18:10–11). Saul’s command to his servants to find the female medium ‘that I may inquire of her (ואדרשה בה)’ in 1 Sam 28:7 recalls the language of Deut 18:11 (דרש אל המתים) which condemns necromantic divination. Saul’s command to the female medium, ‘Divine for me by a spirit’ (קסומי נא באוב in 1 Sam 28:8) also echoes the language of Deut 18:10 (קסם קסמים), which condemns divination in general. ²¹ Just as the Deuteronomic legislation condemns various forms of divination and favors Yahwistic prophecy, the episode of 1 Sam 28:3–25 denounces necromantic divination and commends legitimate prophecy. The intertextual connection with the Priestly legislation (Lev 19:31, 20:6, 27) is less obvious than Berman makes us believe. ²² But as Berman observes, the plural noun אבות and the verb בקש do provide a lexical link between 1 Sam 28 and the Priestly laws, the latter of the two condemns necromancy in the strongest terms (cf. מות יומתו in Lev 20:27). ²³ To what Berman has already said, I would add one thing: the female medium of Endor uses the language of Lev 20:6 (הכרתי) in explaining Saul’s ‘cutting of’ the mediums and the necromancers (1 Sam 28:9). This connection with the Priestly legislation may justify the violent death of Saul in the battlefield (cf. Lev 20:27 vs. 1 Sam 31:6).

IV. Commending Prophecy

While condemning necromantic divination, the narrator approves the truth and efficacy of prophecy, although he couches the prophecy in the narrative frame of necromancy. He does that by crafting into the text some details that show the authenticity of the invoked Samuel. First, it should be noted that the medium has no explicit role during the séance of Saul and Samuel. ²⁴ Further, the female medium appears to have played only a minimal role even in invoking Samuel out of the underground, judging from the fact that the narrator gives no detail about the mechanics by which she brought up the ghost out of the underworld. This is no omission of theologically problematic details. The narrator gives no hint that the woman invoked Samuel, even though he could have done so through a command-fulfillment sequence in vv. 11b–12a. In other words, the narrator could say, ‘the woman brought up Samuel’, after registering Saul’s command to ‘Bring Samuel up for me’ in v. 11b. Instead, after Saul’s command, the narrator describes the woman as ‘seeing’, not ‘bringing up’, Samuel (v. 12a). This has to do with the narrator’s efforts to minimize the woman’s initiative in invoking Samuel and maximizes Samuel’s initiative in appearing before Saul. ²⁵ He is, the narrator implies, the authentic Samuel, who does not allow himself to be manipulated by a necromancer.

Second, Samuel’s prophecy in vv. 16–19 corresponds with the divine will—that is, the fall of Saul and the rise of David—expressed in the rest of 1 Samuel. ²⁶ Samuel’s first declarative words ‘Yahweh turned from you’ (v. 16b) not only reflect the grim reality that Saul himself admits in v. 15b, but also communicate the divine will, previously expressed by Yahweh himself in 1 Sam 15:11: ‘He (Saul) has turned back from following me.’ Verse 17b is more explicit in its connection with the so-called ‘prophetic history’ of Saul’s fall and David’s rise. ²⁷ The language of ‘rending the kingdom from’ Saul’s ‘hand’ and ‘giving to’ Saul’s ‘neighbor’ recalls Samuel’s prophecy of doom of 1 Sam 15:28. As for the reason given in v. 17b for Saul’s doom, namely, Saul’s disobedience (לא שמע בקול יהוה) in the matter of carrying out Yahweh’s ‘wrath against Amalek’, it references back to 1 Sam 15:22–23 where rebellion is compared to the sin of divination and idolatry. Further, it provides a link to the broader history of ancient Israel recorded by the Deuteronomist: ‘Not listening to the voice of Yahweh’ (לא שמע בקול יהוה) is mentioned as the cause of covenantal curses in various forms (Deut 28:15), death in the wilderness (Josh 5:6), divine judgment (1 Sam 12:15; 1 Kgs 20:36) and even ‘exile’ (Deut 8:20; 2 Kgs 18:12). ²⁸

The rise of David is another theme of Samuel’s prophecy. Samuel connects the fall of Saul to the rise of David as if they were in a cause and effect relation. For instance, note the Masoretic text of v. 17: ‘Yahweh did to him (לו)…and rent the kingdom from your hand and gave to your neighbor, to David (לדוד).’ If the Masoretic reading לו were original, it would be best taken to refer to David, since Saul is being referred to in the second person in Samuel’s speech. Besides, the phrase לדוד ‘to David’ epexegetically added to לרעך ‘to your neighbor’ reveals the identity of רעך הטוב ממך ‘your neighbor who is better than you’ that Samuel had left unidentified in 1 Sam 15:28. In this sense the dead Samuel’s prophecy provides a canonical commentary on the living Samuel’s prophecy on the same subject. ²⁹ From this we may ascertain that Samuel’s message in vv. 16–19 agrees with the divine will expressed elsewhere in 1 Samuel.

Third, the invoked spirit appears to be authentic Samuel because his message passes the test of true prophecy laid down in Deuteronomy (13:1–5; 18:9–22). The author of Deuteronomy defines prophecy as a native Israelite phenomenon (Deut 18:9–14) and finds its prototype in the mediating agency of Moses at Sinai (Deut 18:15–19). The chief function of the prophet is, therefore, to preach the law after the manner of Moses (Deut 13:1–5) and the secondary function is the prediction, ‘which, when successful, can serve to validate the prophet’s mission’ (Deut 18:21–22). ³⁰ The narrator of 1 Samuel demonstrates the truthfulness of the invoked spirit’s prophecy, first, as we have discussed above, by showing its message as concurring with the known divine will elsewhere in the narrative, and second by showing that its message is in agreement with the reality both at the present and in the future. After indicating that Saul’s current predicament is the fulfilment of Samuel’s previous prophecy (vv. 16–18), Samuel goes on to declare another prophecy against Saul, namely, Saul’s ill fate in the imminent battle with the Philistines (v. 19). The narrator records its fulfillment in chapter 31. ³¹ Note, however, that the narrator inserts the episode of David’s successful battle against Amalek before he registers the fulfilment of Samuel’s prophecy against Saul. By so doing, the narrator shows how both the prophecies—against Saul and in favor of David—were fulfilled as Yahweh had spoken through the lips of the prophet.

All this indicates that by couching authentic prophecy within the narrative framework of failed necromantic divination, the narrator commends prophecy as the legitimate way of discerning divine will.

V. Equivocating about Invocation of a Ghost

One noteworthy tension in the ‘meal’ scene where the female necromancer urges exhausted Saul to have nourishment suggests two reasons for Saul’s exhaustion. Verse 20b—‘[Saul] feared much because of Samuel’s words’—seems to attribute it to the fear of death induced in Saul by Samuel’s prophecy of doom, whereas verse 20d—‘for he ate no bread all day and all night’—implies Saul’s 24 hour long fast as the cause of his exhaustion. So, which is it that left Saul so exhausted after the séance, fear or hunger? This ambivalence is intended by the narrator in order to bridge the séance scene and the meal scene. If Saul’s unabated fear after the séance is a sign of unsuccessful divination, Saul’s hunger provides a natural link to the subsequent meal scene and prepares the reader for a new view about the narrator’s attitude towards the cult of the dead. Also suggestive in this regard is the narrator’s silence about the whereabouts of invoked Samuel. Had he gone back to the underworld or was he still with Saul in the meal scene? The narrator’s silence on this matter is deliberate. And the narrator’s silence about Saul’s returning to the underworld makes it possible to read the meal scene as an instance of a ritual meal shared by the living and the dead. Indeed, on the surface level, the meat and the bread which the female necromancer prepared was to nourish king Saul who was physically and mentally exhausted, ³² but on a deeper level, the meal scene recalls the practice of ancestor worship which includes preparation of food, invocation of the dead, and a ritual meal shared by the living and the dead. Also noteworthy is the positive portrayal of the female medium in the meal scene. The narrator portrays her as showing sympathy and hospitality to Saul. The female medium who successfully invoked Samuel out of the underworld before the séance now invites him to a ritual meal after the séance. By so doing, the narrator appears to affirm, albeit in a subtle manner, the practice of ancestor worship. In other words, the narrator is not explicitly condemning elements relating to ancestor worship (e.g., invocation of the dead, a ritual meal for the dead). And this relates to the historical fact that ancient Israelites did practice some form of ancestor cult. The narrator of 1 Sam 28:3–25 is accommodating to some elements of ancestor worship that was widely practised by the populace, invocation of the dead for a ritual meal being certainly one of them. In opposition to divination by the dead, ancestor worship was not about manipulation of fate, but about remembrance, connection, veneration, and caring for the basic needs of the dead. So it is arguable that the narrator of 1 Sam 28:3–25 maintains a non-committal attitude to ancestor worship and that is the reason why he does not explicitly condemn the female medium whose role is restricted to invocation and in addition portrays her positively in the ‘meal’ scene. The narrator’s criticism is directed in a focused manner to King Saul who has directly engaged a ghost in a one-on-one dialogue.

VI. Conclusion

In this paper, I have attempted to show that the narrator’s positive portrayal of the female medium is related to his different attitudes toward ancestor worship and necromantic divination. Necromantic divination is a late comer in the history of religion: the act of invoking the dead from the underworld was performed originally without any intention of divination by the dead. Invoking dead ancestors did not necessarily entail beseeching them to predict or change one’s fate. To borrow from Milgrom’s words, ‘there is a world of difference between the guardian-dead and the diviner-dead.’ ³³ While strongly condemning necromantic divination as idolatrous, arguably, the narrator accommodates to the time-honored and widespread practice of ancestor cult. ³⁴ This is reflected in the narrator’s differentiation between the two aspects of necromancy: invocation and divination. The narrator does not condemn the female medium for what she does, namely, invocation. He makes her practically disappear from the séance scene and makes her reappear in the meal scene. He positively portrays her as being successful in her job of bringing up the dead, and as showing kindness and sympathy to the despondent king by providing a meal for him. All this has to do with ancestor cult. The narrator, however, makes necromantic divination look ineffective and condemns Saul for resorting to divination, while presenting the message of Prophet Samuel as being authentic. Thus, the narrator shares the Deuteronomic attitude toward divination and condemns necromancy in 1 Sam 28:3–25, but he accommodates the idea of invoking the dead which was an integral part of ancestor cult.