The day comes—David cannot escape this juncture of events—when the Philistines once again gather together their armies to go to war against Israel. David’s false position in their midst will thus be made evident. Poor David! What to do? How can he draw hack after having fooled the enemy about his enterprises and his sympathies? Let us remember that it is easier to enter a wrong pathway than to leave it.
We shall see that God does not abandon David and that He saves him in spite of himself from the danger of fighting against God’s people, but we shall also see how severe the discipline which he will have to endure will be.
Is it surprising that Achish, deceived by David, is counting on him? This proof of confidence ought to cover the man of God with shame: “Know thou assuredly that thou shalt go out with me to the camp, thou and thy men” (1 Sam. 28:1). A wrong walk is not only deplorable for ourselves but it draws after us into evil those whom we are called upon to guide as well. David’s answer is ambiguous like all of his behavior: “Thereby thou shalt know what thy servant can do” (1 Sam. 28:2). Later, alas! this will be only too evident when he attempts to vindicate himself before the king and the princes (1 Sam. 29:8). Achish, deceived, replies: “Therefore will I make thee keeper of my person forever” (1 Sam. 28:2). Here then is the “beloved” being called upon to support Israel’s hereditary enemy! This is his reward; he advances in dignity. He, the true king of Israel, becomes Achish’s bodyguard. What a promotion, what an honor! Though a Christian is nothing in his own eyes, he is a king in God’s sight; he is called upon to walk according to this dignity. If he receives the world’s honors he loses his royal character, for he becomes a slave and has no part in his master’s benefits except in the measure in which he is in bondage to him.
In 1 Samuel 28:3, God’s word returns to Samuel’s death. As we have seen, this death left Saul and his people disabled. But Samuel’s presence and Saul’s profession of serving the Lord had resulted in Saul himself performing an act of purification: “Saul had put away the necromancers and the soothsayers out of the land.”
The enemy gathers together: Saul “was afraid, and his heart greatly trembled. And Saul inquired of Jehovah; but Jehovah did not answer him, either by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets” (1 Sam. 28:5-6). This position was more miserable than when Israel had followed enchantments and strange gods! At least these had given the appearance of answering Israel—an illusion no doubt, but an illusion which for the moment had raised their flagging spirits. Now: nothing but silence. The house that was swept had no statue, no ephod, and no teraphim (Hos. 3:4). What to do? Whom to consult? Whom to lean on? What uncertainty for Saul! Judgment is at the door: how can it be evaded? Oh! in this darkness where he is floundering, if even a feeble ray of light would show him a way out! Nothing is more wretched than his condition. He is aware of his inevitable fate and in his great anguish is seeking a means to escape it. Now Saul takes account of the horror of his condition. Death would be better, but death offers no shelter from the judgment which he sees steadily advancing toward him from afar and which he knows to be without pity.
“Seek me a woman that has a spirit of Python, that I may go to her and inquire of her” (1 Sam. 28:7). Christendom in our day is no different, about to be “spewed out” of the Lord’s mouth. It is calling up spirits and indulging herself with satanic illusions, for at one and the same time there is frightening reality and shameful illusion in these practices. The reality is that a demon puts itself at the disposal of the Pythoness; the illusion is that she is able to call up the dead. The demon only clothes itself with a shadowy appearance, for Jesus holds the keys of death and of Hades and no power but His own is able to open its doors. Satan himself cannot call up the dead. Those who have not believed and who have died are and remain “the spirits in prison.” God alone by making an exception can permit Samuel to come forth from the realm of the invisible and appear.
“When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice” (1 Sam. 28:12). This was not the result she had expected from her sorcery. The spirit that she knew was not there to clothe itself with an illusory form like those which she had had her followers witness. Before she can even call up the spirit a personage who greatly frightens her suddenly rises up before her. This is not just another appearance but a divine reality, “a god ascending out of the earth” (1 Sam. 28:13), an personage on whom her enchantments have no hold. It is Samuel himself, recognized by the king before whom he had walked for so long. The woman does not recognize Samuel, but Saul does. He alone, Israel’s head, was important enough to receive such an extraordinary vision. As for Saul, he cannot mistake the person, still less the words of Samuel. God who is not answering by the prophets posthumously answers one last time by Samuel, but only to ratify the judgment already pronounced.
Saul exposes his distress, his abandonment, his isolation, and the anguish of his soul (1 Sam. 28:15). It is too late; the measure is full; God has forgotten nothing; now He has become the enemy of Saul (1 Sam. 28:16) who has both God and the Philistines against him. And why? Saul did “not hearken to the voice of Jehovah” nor “execute His fierce anger upon Amalek” (1 Sam. 28:18). Moreover, beside the fact that he had “kept not... the word of Jehovah” he had “inquired of the spirit of Python, asking counsel of it, and he asked not counsel of Jehovah” (1 Chron. 10:13). Disobedience and independence characterize man without God, and in spite of all appearances Saul was one of these. Because of these things the death of Saul and of his sons was decreed as well as the defeat of Israel (1 Sam. 28:19).
But yet another decision is announced to Saul, and this for the third time: “Jehovah has rent the kingdom out of thy hand, and given it to thy neighbor, to David” (1 Sam. 28:17). He had already heard this twice from Samuel’s mouth (1 Sam. 13:14; 15:28), but David’s name had not yet been mentioned. Today he learns from the mouth of God what he in his hatred had long ago suspected (1 Sam. 24:21): his “neighbor” was this despised, hated, rejected David whom he himself had pursued, and this David is the chosen one, the anointed one, the beloved one who will have the place of honor and to whom the kingdom belongs! All that Saul had feared now rises up against him. No more pity, no more pardon. David, the king of grace himself, who had spared Saul so many times, had soothed him so often, who had returned him good for evil without tiring, could no longer from this moment onward present himself to Saul except as a judge.
Saul “fell straightway his full length on the earth, and was sore afraid because of the words of Samuel” (1 Sam. 28:20). It is only when man finds himself before his inevitable fate that he really appreciates all its bearing. Until then there is always room for some illusion which hides the horror of our future from us. The king has no strength; he is faint with hunger but will not eat; he finally accepts some material help from the hand of one who is reprobate just like himself (1 Sam. 28:20-25).
What a solemn picture of the end of the man, the king according to the flesh! All the principles of his activity are called to his remembrance and weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, are found to be only disobedience, independence, and enmity against God and against His anointed. Nothing, absolutely nothing of that which has led Saul can stand before God. All his motives, all his ways, become just so many objects of judgment.