Saul at En-dor
He had driven out the mediums himself. At the end, he went to one.
The Philistine army was assembled.
Saul saw them and was afraid.
His heart trembled greatly.
He inquired of the LORD.
The LORD did not answer him.
Not by dreams. Not by prophets. Not by the Urim.
Nothing.
He told his servants to find him a woman who was a medium.
He went to her at night, in disguise.
He asked her to call up Samuel.
She said: You know what Saul has done, how he cut off the mediums and necromancers from the land.
Why then are you laying a trap for my life to bring about my death?
He swore to her: As the LORD lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing.
She brought up Samuel.
When she saw Samuel, she cried out in a loud voice.
She said: You are Saul.
She had recognized him.
Saul asked Samuel why he had disturbed him.
Samuel said: Why do you ask me, since the LORD has turned from you?
The LORD has done to you as he spoke by me.
He has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor, David.
Because you did not obey the voice of the LORD.
Tomorrow you and your sons shall be with me.
The LORD will give the army of Israel into the hand of the Philistines.
Saul fell at once, full length on the ground.
He was filled with fear.
There was no strength in him.
He had not eaten all day and all night.
The medium came to him.
She urged him to eat.
He refused at first.
His servants also urged him.
He rose from the ground.
He sat on the bed.
She killed a fattened calf for him.
She baked unleavened bread.
He ate.
He rose in the night.
He and his servants went.
He walked back out into the dark toward a battle he knew he would not survive.
He had been told tomorrow.
He rose.
He ate.
He walked toward it.
There is a kind of courage in the walking.
And a kind of tragedy in what made it necessary.
Scripture — 1 Samuel 28:20
"Then Saul fell straightway all along on the earth, and was sore afraid, because of the words of Samuel: and there was no strength in him; for he had eaten no bread all the day, nor all the night."
Reflection
He had outlawed the very practice he resorted to at the end. The prohibition had been his. The desperation undid it.
He ate, rose, and walked back toward the battle Samuel had told him he would lose. That walk is its own story.
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