1 Samuel 28:15

15. Samuel said to Saul Did, then, Samuel actually speak? We understand that as the witch did all the seeing for Saul, so also she did all the speaking to him. She was the medium both of sight and sound. The Septuagint version calls her a ventriloquist; and she may have caused her voice to sound from some dark corner, so that Saul and his attendants believed it to be the voice of Samuel. But it is not necessary to suppose this. Any one who sought unto the dead in this way, even though he saw and heard the necromancer utter the words with her own lips, if he believed that the communication came from the person sought, would naturally speak of it in this way. So when Saul’s servants afterwards reported this affair, they would naturally say, “Samuel said to Saul,” not “the woman said;” for though they may have known that the woman was the medium of the sound, they doubtless believed that the communication itself came from Samuel.

It should here be observed how perfectly noncommittal the sacred historian is in recording this mysterious transaction. He records the whole matter precisely as it was reported by the two eye-witnesses, and these witnesses reported it precisely as it appeared to them. They believed that Samuel had spoken to their king; but the sacred historian expresses no opinion in the case. He may have believed their report, as they did, but he does not say so. And it is noticeable that none of the sacred writers commit themselves to any explanation of the mysteries which they record. The magicians of Egypt are represented as working actual miracles in opposition to Moses; but no attempt is made to explain the nature of those miracles. So here the sacred writer records a mysterious event just as it was currently reported and believed, but attempts no explanation.

Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up This utterance is unworthy of a holy prophet sent on a mission of God from heaven. He charges Saul with forcing him up from the grave against his will. The common interpretation affirms that Samuel rose from the dead by special permission and express command of God; but how absurd, in the light of Christian truth, to imagine the sainted Samuel coming thus from the world of spirits, and angrily complaining to Saul that he had disturbed him! Can it be aught but a pleasure for any of the saints in light to obey Jehovah’s orders? Or, if the order involve a painful duty, would it not be rebellion for the servant to complain? The words are rationally explicable only when regarded as a device of the witch to awe and terrify the soul of the king. They strongly savour of witchcraft.