King Saul Resorts to Summoning Spirits (1 Samuel, Chapter 28)

After God abandons him, King Saul asks a witch to summon 

the spirit of the recently deceased Samuel.

1 Samuel, Chapter 28.  This chapter is actually highly entertaining.  The Philistines have raised a giant army against King Saul and the Israelites, and Saul fears for his life.  He tries to contact Yahweh (aka 'God') but Yahweh is no longer with him, and thus no longer communicated with him.  As the chapter says, "... the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim."

Remember the Urim?  It was a contraption that was set into a magical vest that helped divine messages from God (or revelations).  Well, the Urim wasn't working and Saul was getting desperate.  So, he resorts to witchcraft - which is possibly an even bigger no-no than what Saul did wrong in the first place.  If you remember, the reason why Saul's on Yahweh's shit list is because he failed to kill ALL of the Amelekites.

Saul requests of the which to summon the spirit of the recently deceased Prophet Samuel (whom this book is named after).  Saul's reason for speaking with Samuel is because Samuel was very close to Yahweh.  Well, the witch was able to summon a spirit who answered to the name of Samuel, but the spirit did not give Saul comforting advice.  Also of interest, while she was summoning the spirit of Samuel, she reported to Saul that she saw gods ascending from the earth.


Samuel basically said, "Yea buddy, because of your little stunt sparing the lives of those Amelekites, Yahweh's basically going to hand you and all the Israelites over to the Philistines.  But don't worry, you and all your family will be hanging out with me in the land of the dead by this time tomorrow."


Needless to say, this panicked Saul quite a bit.


While this was a sad chapter for Saul, there are a few interesting things we can take from this chapter.  First, we can delve into the minds of the ancient Israelites and learn about how they divined information from their god(s).  Secondly, the Israelite conception of a god is very different than the modern interpretation.  They didn't believe in one god; they believed in many.  This is evident from the witch's comment, "I saw gods ascending from the earth."


Even though she was a witch, the author and the ancient Israelites believed that though there were many gods; Yahweh was the most important of them.  They were very much like a cult of Yahweh.  It is from this belief of worshiping one god only instead of the others which monotheism would later evolve.

Deuteronomy, Chapter 25 is another list of arbitrary rules that leave me wondering what situation created a need for them in the first place?

Rule 1.  If a judge convicts someone as guilty in a dispute, the judge can issue no more than 40 lashes by a whip.  Anymore than that would be publicly humiliating.

Rule 2.  Don't muzzle an ox while he's working; in other words, let the ox eat while it works.

Rule 3.  When one brother dies, his wife must marry his brother (whether she likes him or not?).  It says, "If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry ... her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother unto her."  A husband's duty, according to this passage, was just to have sex with his wife.

Rule 4.  If the MAN doesn't want to have sex with his brother's wife, then the wife should go to the elders, remove the man's shoe, and spit in his face.  Huh?

Rule 5.  When two men are fighting, and a wife helps her husband by grabbing the other man's balls, then she should have her hand chopped off.  What?!?

Rule 6.  Be honest when doing business with others.

Rule 7.  Hate the Amelekites. 

Okay, so in Deuteronomy Chapter 25 the rules are all over the map, and they're all arbitrary.  The one rule that is actually halfway decent is the sixth one I list above, which is Deuteronomy 25:13-15, about not cheating when doing business with others.  Letting an ox eat while it works is nice, but I'd be inclined to say its unimportant.  And the other stuff, stopping at 40 lashes, hating the Amelikites, chopping a woman's hand off for protecting her husband, is just wrong.  And weird! 

Exodus Chapter 17 is very quick and easy. Basically, the Israelites are still in the desert and they're pissed that there's no water. In fear of them, Moses asks God what's going on with the water supply and God tells Mo to tap a rock. Moses does so, and behold, water comes out of it!

The authors of the Bible don't really care about transitional material. After the watering episode, the Amelekites attack the Israelites. In the battle, as long as Moses holds both of his hands up into the air, the Israelites are winning; but if he lowers his hands, the Amelekites are winning. The battle goes on for so long that Moses is propped against a rock and his two homeboys held the hands up for him.

Chapter 17 lays out the case about how superstitious people were back then, and by extension how superstitious people are today. Superstition means a belief that isn't based on reason. If Moses actions were repeated today (lifting your hands affects the outcome of the battle), the general doing so would be thought of as eccentric at best. If Generals Patton or Petraeus held their hands up during a heated battle, most folks today would think they were crazy. In fact, they'd probably get fired.

But still, there are people today who let stories like this slide, believing that these events happened back then but can not be replicated today. That's an irrational belief itself, and I'd venture to say that it is superstitious as well.

Next time, the 10 Commandments. Are the ones we are familiar with the 'correct' ones, or are they even moral?