a woman · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
saw
וַתֵּ֤רֶאva.Te.re'
H7200
to see · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
Samuel
שְׁמוּאֵ֔לshe.mu.'El
H8050
Shemuel · proper noun, a man's name
cried
וַתִּזְעַ֖קva.tiz.'Ak
H2199
to shriek (from anguish or danger) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
loud
גָּד֑וֹלga.Dol
H1419
great (in any sense) · adjective, masculine singular absolute
voice
בְּק֣וֹלbe.Kol
H6963
a voice or sound · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
woman
הָאִשָּׁ֨הha.'i.Shah
H802
a woman · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
spake
וַתֹּאמֶר֩va.to.Mer
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
Saul
שָׁא֧וּלsha.'Ul
H7586
Shaul · proper noun, a man's name
saying
לֵאמֹ֛רle.Mor
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
deceived
רִמִּיתָ֖נִיri.mi.Ta.ni
H7411
to hurl · verb, piel perfect, 2nd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix
Saul
שָׁאֽוּלsha.'Ul
H7586
Shaul · proper noun, a man's name
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
1 Samuel 28:3 Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had lamented him, and buried him in Ramah, even in his own city. And Saul had put away those that had fa…
1 Kings 14:5 And the LORD said unto Ahijah, Behold, the wife of Jeroboam cometh to ask a thing of thee for her son; for he is sick: thus and thus shalt t…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 28:7-14
Here, I. Saul seeks for a witch, Sa1 28:7. When God answered him not, if he had humbled himself by repentance and persevered in seeking God, who knows but that at length he might have been entreated for him? but, since he can discern no comfort either from heaven or earth (Isa 8:21, Isa 8:22), he resolves to knock at the gates of hell, and to see if any there will befriend him and give him advice: Seek me a woman that has a familiar spirit, Sa1 28:7. And his servants were too officious to serve him in this evil affair; they presently recommended one to him at Endor (a city not far off) who had escaped the execution of Saul's edict. To her he resolves to apply. Herein he is chargeable, 1. Wit…
bring me him up, whom I shall name unto thee--This pythoness united to the arts of divination a claim to be a necromancer (Deu 18:11); and it was her supposed power in calling back the dead of which Saul was desirous to avail himself. Though she at first refused to listen to his request, she accepted his pledge that no risk would be incurred by her compliance. It is probable that his extraordinary stature, the deference paid him by his attendants, the easy distance of his camp from En-dor, and the proposal to call up the great prophet and first magistrate in Israel (a proposal which no private individual would venture to make), had awakened her suspicions as to the true character and rank of…
When the woman saw Samuel - That Samuel did appear on this occasion, is most evident from the text; nor can this be denied from any legitimate mode of interpretation: and it is as evident that he was neither raised by the power of the devil nor the incantations of the witch, for the appearances which took place at this time were such as she was wholly unacquainted with. Her familiar did not appear; and from the confused description she gives, it is fully evident that she was both surprised and alarmed at what she saw, being so widely different from what she expected to see.
The Church Fathers
These things, then, he will say who does not wish to accept the contest — namely, the one who denies that it is truly Samuel who was brought up. But since one must be fair-minded in listening to the Scriptures, now that the objector's argument has plausibly thundered against us and is truly able to trouble and shake us, let us see whether the Scripture has ever been rightly understood by the one who does not accept this, or whether he sets out from plausible premises but says things contrary to what is written. For what are the things written? "And the woman said: Whom shall I bring up to you?" Whose is the voice that says, "the woman said"? Is it the person of the Holy Spirit, from whom the Scripture is believed to have been written, or the person of some other? For the narrative voice everywhere (as those who have busied themselves with all sorts of discourses know) is the person of the writer; and the writer of these words is believed to be not a human being — the writer is the Holy Spirit who moved the human beings. Therefore it is the Holy Spirit who says: "And the woman said: Whom shall I bring up to you? And he said: Bring me up Samuel." Who is it that says, "And the woman saw Samuel, and the woman cried out with a loud voice, saying"? We will say to that one who has thundered so much against us and said countless things — that Samuel was not in Hades: "the woman saw Samuel" — the narrative voice said this — "and the woman cried out with a loud voice and said to Saul: Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul. And the king said to her: What is it? Do not fear. What have you seen? And the woman said to Saul: I saw gods coming up out of the earth. And he said to her: What is their form? And she said to him: An aged man coming up, and he is clothed with a double cloak, an ephod." It says that she saw also the priestly garment. But I know that the one on the opposing side of the argument says: "No wonder; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. It is no great thing, then, if his servants too are transformed as servants of righteousness." But what is it that "the woman saw"? "Samuel." And why is it not said: the woman saw a demon that pretended to be Samuel? But it is written that "Saul knew that it was Samuel." If it had not been Samuel, it ought to have been written: and Saul thought that it was Samuel; but as it is, it is written:…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Divination — Of false prophets (Deut. 18:10, 14; Micah 3:6, 7, 11), of necromancers (1 Sam. 28:8), of the Philistine priests and diviners (1 Sam. 6:2), of Balaam (Josh. 13:22). Three kinds of divination are…
Magic — The Jews seem early to have consulted the teraphim (q.v.) for oracular answers (Judg. 18:5, 6; Zech. 10:2). There is a remarkable illustration of this divining by teraphim in Ezek. 21:19-22. We read…
Saul — Asked for. (1.) A king of Edom (Gen. 36:37, 38); called Shaul in 1 Chr. 1:48. (2.) The son of Kish (probably his only son, and a child of prayer, “asked for”), of the tribe of Benjamin, the first…
Witchcraft — (1 Sam. 15:23; 2 Kings 9:22; 2 Chr. 33:6; Micah 5:12; Nahum 3:4; Gal. 5:20). In the popular sense of the word no mention is made either of witches or of witchcraft in Scripture. The “witch of En-dor”…
Divination · Effected through: Raising the dead — Effected through: Raising the dead
En-Dor · The witch of, consulted by Saul — The witch of, consulted by Saul
Familiar Spirits · .Saul — .Saul
Miracles Through Evil Agents · Exemplified: Witch of Endor — Exemplified: Witch of Endor
Necromancy · .The witch of En-dor — .The witch of En-dor
Witchcraft · The Witch of Endor — The Witch of Endor
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
John Gill on 1 Samuel 28:12
And when the woman saw Samuel,.... The appearance of him whom she took for Samuel; no mention is made of the methods she used to raise him, to check the curiosity of such as might be desirous to know them, and to prevent the imitation of them; though some think that Samuel, or the apparition, was seen before she made use of any, which surprised her; but this seems not so probable, and is only observed for the sake of an hypothesis; though it must be owned the word "when" is not in the text:
she cried with a loud voice; not so much frightened at what she saw, and the manner of his appearing, and as thinking the resurrection of the dead was come, as say the Jews (b), as what she feared would…
Saul with the witch at Endor. - The invasion of Israel by the Philistines, which brought David into so difficult a situation, drove king Saul to despair, so that in utter helplessness he had recourse to ungodly means of inquiring into the future, which he himself had formerly prohibited, and to his horror had to hear the sentence of his own death. This account is introduced with the remark in Sa1 28:3 that Samuel was dead and had been buried at Ramah (cf. Sa1 25:1; וּבעירו, with an explanatory vav, and indeed in his own city), and that Saul had expelled "those that had familiar spirits and the wizards out of the land" (on the terms employed, oboth and yiddonim, see at Lev 19:31). He had done…
It is not clear why seeing Samuel caused the woman to recognize Saul.
Rashi on 1 Samuel 28:12
She screamed loudly. For she saw him ascending not in the usual manner8Radak suggests that the moment the woman saw the manner in which Shmuel came up, she realized that the man who had come to her was Shaul, and that is why she screamed. of those who ascend [through the אוֹב medium], for when one conjures up [the dead], they ascend with their feet upward, while this one was ascending with his head upward, in honor of Shaul.9Vayikra Rabboh 26:7.
