Saul and Sorcery: The Omen of the Ground

The earth was a recurring image in Saul’s life that bore the portent of failure. It was as if an inanimate feature of the material sphere was prophesying or maliciously mischieving against him. But then again, even Jesus hinted on the earth’s power to “cry out” (Luke 19:40) in praise and glory. It was a lesson God was willing to provide should His people choose to disobey. And disobey Saul did!

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In 1 Samuel 24, Saul was by then deep in the depravity of his apostasy when his kingly duties were being preoccupied with his lust for David’s head. In the second verse, he and his royal contingent decide to stop a place called the Crags of the Wild Goats for the king to fulfill his faithful duty to contribute to the ground’s productivity. In the third verse, Saul chooses a cave to defecate in. It was a cave where David and his men were hiding deeper in its recess. Anybody with him, and later even Saul, could see that it was David’s golden moment to strike down his tormentor. It was the perfect time and the perfect place provided by the presence of the hollowness of that single piece of gigantic earth. David refused in that he saw his tormentor as “the anointed of the Lord” (verse 6).

But David did more than just spare the life of Saul. Spiritually, it seemed that David acted as a monkey wrench to jam the trend of destruction that the omen of the earth had been indicating. And he not only did it once, but twice. On the second occasion, David was presented with the opportunity to slay the persistently pursuing king as he snuck into Saul’s camp and found him “lying asleep…with his spear stuck in the ground near his head” (1 Samuel 26:7). If during the first time David clipped off a corner of the king’s cloak (24:4), this time he carries away the spear and the water jug that were near Saul’s head (26:11). Then by the time the camp rose to begin another day of murderous hunt, David, from a safe distance, cried out to Saul and pleaded to him to give up the chase by bringing to his attention the missing spear and water jug. Then in the words of David the portent of the earth comes into play:

 “Now do not let my blood fall to the ground far from the presence of the Lord. The king of Israel has come out to look for a flea—as one hunts a partridge in the mountains” (1 Samuel 26:20).

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It is very noteworthy that David captured the imagery of blood falling to the ground, something that should have happened way back when the king’s men devoured Philistine cattle meat in 1 Samuel 14:32.  But above all, the prophetic imagery provided by David portrayed the conclusion God intended on everything Saul had set out to accomplish. Before he unilaterally decided to offer the Prophet Samuel’s burnt and peace sacrifices at Gilgal (1 Samuel 14:9), the earth was a silent and unnoticed omen in the background, only discernable to a seer. But after Saul had consummated his choice to act on his own and succumb to the deception of terror, the failure of all his tasks signified by the earth became a recurring tingle in his ear as well as a glaring figure everywhere he went. The most ominous picture the Lord subtly displayed to Saul, however, was not merely the undoing of specific plans but the ruin and humiliation of him being king, the collapse of his house, and his ignominious death in the hands of his enemies. The idiomatic phrase “fall to the earth” or “fall to the ground” that appear seven times in the King James Version of the Bible meant more than failure of effort; it spoke of death and destruction. Here are some of them:

 In referring to the words spoken by the Prophet Samuel: “The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground” (1 Samuel 2:19).

Mentioned earlier, when Saul threatened to execute Jonathan for being the culprit that spoiled his rash vow and his pursuit of the retreating Philistines altogether:  “But the men said to Saul, ‘Should Jonathan die—he who has brought this great deliverance in Israel? Never! As surely as the Lord lives, not a hair of his head will fall to the ground, for he did this today with God’s help’" (1 Samuel 14:45).

When the newly installed King Solomon deliberated whether or not to take down his brother Adonijah: “If he shows himself to be a worthy man, not a hair of his head will fall to the ground; but if evil is found in him, he will die” (2 Samuel 1:52).

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On another note out of 1 Samuel 26, present is the irony of the water jug as it fits the apparatus that may have been used by the witch of Endor to divine the spirit of the Prophet Samuel. Saul was hungry for any message from God and he received the last one that night concerning his death. Any hope of escaping this fate fled and “immediately Saul fell full length to the ground, filled with fear because of Samuel’s words” (1 Samuel 28:20).

An example of a water jug as shown balanced above the head of an Egyptian woman.

The Prophet through his categorical declaration of Saul’s mortal defeat brought the king back to the Amalekite incident where the willful betrayal of God was accomplished. In the narrative, there was no mention anywhere of the ground or of the earth, aside from the ravine where Saul and his men set up their ambush (1 Samuel 15:5). What provided the greatest significance instead was the occurrence of “idolatry” (verse 23) in Samuel’s prophetic rebuke: “…and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.”

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The sin of idolatry is most understood through the crafting of images; and out of all the materials that can be used in fashioning these, God, in His Ten Commandments, warned on using the earth when He decreed, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image…” (Exodus 20:4, King James Version). What significance did God see in the earth that He made it more closely associated to idolatry than the elements of metal and wood? In one of our past study, we have seen how idolatry has been identified with the occult, that those who worship idols actually worship demons, according to the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:19 to 21. In the Old Testament, the psalmist sings:

“All who worship images are put to shame, those who boast in idols—worship him, all you gods!”

The word “gods” used in this passage—this we have mentioned earlier—was the Hebrew elohim or “spirits.” It has been established in 2 Kings 23:24 that idols such as household gods were an integral component in ancient pagan divination and spiritism. As a young boy who frequented the rustic regions of the Philippines, I have often heard stories of familiar spirits roaming the dark corners and the lonely landscapes after dark. When I matured and had given up all fear and belief of these campfire, gaslight, and bedtime fiction, I realized that even Bible characters—grownups, at that—never dismissed the reality of such supernatural phenomena like we do today for the sake of “reason” and “sensibility.” The disciples, for example, panicked when mistook Jesus for “a ghost” when they saw Him treading above the turbulent surface of the lake water in Matthew 14:26. Here is how the gospel writer rendered the scene:

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“When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. ‘It’s a ghost,’ they said, and cried out in fear.”


Jesus lived during the Roman occupation of Israel. The land had just welcomed the Greek culture. Greek philosophy and idolatrous tales of its mythology became popular and even seeped into some aspects of Jewish thought. Before the Greeks, they have emerged from another idolatrous civilization whose founder, Cyrus, was even prophesied beforehand by Isaiah (Isaiah 44:28, 45:1) and Jeremiah (2 Chronicles 36:22 and 23) to liberate the Jews and to rebuild Jerusalem. It was a time of great spiritual corruption as evidenced by the demon possession that was rampant in the land. Though minimally indicated in the New Testament, Jesus’ disciples understood the sight or sound of an unclean spirit skulking somewhere out the window behind the trees or crunching on the rocky path at night. Jesus even alluded to unclean spirits roaming through “arid places seeking rest” (Matthew 12:44). Before Jesus, ghostly sightings were the only supernatural moments known to the disciples, the Jews, and, of course, the pagan world.


Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 12:43 to 45 touched on demonic possession, a phenomenon we understand when an unclean spirit torments a human individual by inhabiting his body. What is it about the human body that attracts demonic fancy? The Bible explains that demons are angelic spirits living apart from the Presence of the Lord. Because of this, they eternally lack the peace of God’s Presence experienced by their faithful counterparts. Man, on the other hand, though existing apart from heaven, maintains a spiritual peace through his physical body. The Apostle Paul taught about this as being “clothed with our heavenly dwelling” (2 Corinthians 5:2). He referred to the human body as a “tent” (verse 4). In the third verse, he spoke about the spirit without a body is “naked,” which he later consolidates into the principle in verses 6 and 8:

“Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.”

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There are therefore two ways to feel and actually be “at home”: either by being “with the Lord” or “in the body,” a body the Apostle earlier referred to as “jars of clay” (2 Corinthians 4:7). A body fashioned out of the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7). For this reason, the earth holds a special appeal to a spiritual being. Remember that it was on the earth where the “third of the stars of the sky” were flung (Revelation 12:4), and not just on earth but deep “down to the grave, to the depths of the pit” (Isaiah 14:15). The ground became their home, inadequate to embrace them in the peace they needed, but home nonetheless. In the story of the Gadarene demoniac in Matthew 8:30 to 32, the multitude of possessing demons pleaded to Jesus to be sent into a herd of pigs which they immediately sent to their death down a steep bank that slid into the lake. The depth of the lake was a gate called the depth (Job 28:14, 38:16, Matthew 18:6) that opened to the spirits’ home named in Hebrew tongue as Sheol.

But though it has not been explicitly stated in the Scriptures, unclean spirits may also inhabit other products of the earth, like animals; images for worship fashioned out of the earth may likewise qualify for possession, which could be a reason why idols are a fixture in the occult.

Saul embraced the earth (1 Samuel 28:20) after hearing what the spirit of Samuel had to say about his irreversible destiny when he stands to face the Philistine army by daybreak. Greatly shaken, the witch along with his men urged him to eat for he had fed on nothing in the hours before that night (verse 20). From the ground, he sat on a couch and fed on the butchered calf served to them by the witch (verses 23 and 24).

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Saul and Sorcery: Whispers from the Ground

“For dust you are and to the dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19).

The witch was a necromancer, a magician that summoned into the material world spirits of the human departed. In her rituals and in her very words, the most vital component of her craft involved the earth. In 1 Samuel 28:13, she claimed that she saw the Prophet Samuel coming up out of “the ground.” There is a part in Israelite culture which holds that “the grave” (Ecclesiastes 9:10), also known as “the pit,” is the “common destiny” shared by “the righteous and the wicked” (verse 2). In some way we can see where the belief of the Sadducees emerged from. For these materialists, their doctrine bore no provision for the immortality of the human soul, resurrection of the physical body, or any existence of the afterlife. For them, heaven was Israel and hell was either physical death or exile from the Promised Land. If there was any truth to a resurrection, it was in symbolism to repatriation or, in context to contemporary events, the rebirth of the Jewish state of Israel. The core of the Sadducean doctrine was tied to the land of Israel, upon which stood the cornerstone of their faith: the Temple of Solomon. Sadducean culture, according to the outstanding Jewish historian Max I. Dimont, was hewn out of “the letter of the law, not its spirit” (Jews, God and History, Mentor Books: New York, NY, 1994; p.103). It was rigidly fixed to the Temple in Jerusalem, so that when Jerusalem fell to the Roman siege in 135 A.D., the Sadducees disappeared forever.

For the witch, however, there was great respect for the existence of spirits, ancestral spirits, as far as her occult was concerned that inhabited the infernal regions of the earth. This is how she beheld “gods ascending out of the earth” (King James Version). For her ritual, the original Hebrew term for “familiar spirit,” or ôwb, hints on the use of an apparatus that helped produce a hollow sound, either a water-skin or earthen jar. For some Bible scholars and historians, the latter could have been most probably used. While the water-skin made for a good texture of the human flesh, man was more affiliated with the earth. In representing the human body, God and His writers in both the Old and New Testaments used the earth, be it as the ground or in its clay and manufactured form as pottery, as the prime symbol. In Leviticus 6:28, for example, a priestly ritual that regards breaking a clay pot on which a sacrificial meat was cooked represented the earthly body of Jesus Christ. In Leviticus 11, it was prescribed that a vessel—“whether…of wood, cloth, hide or sackcloth” (verse 32)—which any one the specified creatures in verses 29 and 30 touches “will be unclean” (verse 32). But if the vessel was a clay pot, “everything in it will be unclean, and you must break the pot” (verse 33). Figuratively, the earth became irredeemably corrupt once touched by sin; and since the human body came from the earth it received the full brunt of corruption: death (Genesis 3:19).

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The earth, with its supple property to be shaped as a container, has been the perfect representative of man’s spiritual corruption and mortality. In 2 Timothy 2:20, the Apostle Paul speaks of vessels of dishonor, by which he probably meant portable latrines popular in households during ancient times, most were those made in clay. The analogy the Apostle Paul makes in this passage is both amazing and appalling. In the twentieth verse of 2 Timothy 2, it says that, “But in a great house here are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor.” He continues in the twenty-first where he makes his point so highlighted, the shock will stick to the reader until dinner time has past: “Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel of honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work.” Imagine a portable latrine being “cleansed” by a Master, transforming this vessel of ignoble use into a pristine glazed pottery fit for a king to dine on on the most special of occasions. This, of course, is illustrative of the purifying power of the blood of Jesus that has been provided by God in His New Testament. In His Old Testament, well, any earthen pot was broken when ceremonially used by the priest (Leviticus 6:28) or when a lizard falls on it (Leviticus 11:32). But in these earthen jars, the Apostle Paul does not deny God’s sovereign choice to keep in them His “treasure” so that the excellence of God may be fully seen and understood by the perishing world of clay (2 Corinthians 4:7).

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And in this earthen ware, the witch was believed to have whispered into to “bring up” (1 Samuel 28:11) “an old man wearing a robe” (verse 14).

Throughout the account of Saul, there were several elements that persistently appeared and have come to be associated with his destiny. One of these was the earth. Immediately after being crowned king, Saul went farming. Obviously, Saul loved farming. After being anointed, the Prophet Samuel gave Saul a long detailed prediction of events that the young king would encounter on his way back home. The main concern above all these encounters was Saul being baptized in the Spirit of the Lord. In 1 Samuel 10:6, the man of God briefs the king:

“The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you in power, and you will prophesy with them [the prophets]; and you will be changed into a different person.”

After this was an instruction for Saul to pursue: “Once these signs are fulfilled, do whatever your hand finds to do, for God is with you” (verse 7).

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For the rest of the tenth chapter, it was apparent that Saul was yet to find something specific for his hand to do. In the eleventh, he finally decides. In the fifth verse, he actually goes back to farming. This is the first association we find of him with the earth. The next implication of Saul’s relationship with the earth is in 1 Samuel 13:6 where the Israelites, upon witnessing the frighteningly massive Philistine army at Micmash, scrambled in panic to hide in “caves and thickets, among the rocks, and in pits and cisterns.” In the ninth verse, the king decides to take matters into his own hands and offer up the burnt and fellowship offerings himself; it was a task prescribed for the Prophet Samuel to accomplish, not the king. Furthermore, the sacrifice was not offered on the mandatory altar of earth prescribed by Moses in Exodus 20:24. It was during the Israelites’ sin of engorging bloodied meat in 1 Samuel 14:35 when it occurred for the first time to Saul to construct the altar of earth.

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It seems that every time the earth comes into the picture, it was during Saul’s time of spiritual weakness and compromise. The story of the Israelites devouring meat with blood still in it was another incident where the earth is mentioned yet again. Here, it appears several times. First, the battle with the Philistines started in a Philistine outpost on a cliff overlooking a pass which Saul’s son Jonathan daringly crossed to engage twenty of its soldiers (1 Samuel 14:4 to 14).  To Jonathan God granted the victory, for from this great piece of towering earth, the skirmish he sparked went on to sweep over the immense Philistine camp with deadly mayhem: “…the Philistines [were] in total confusion, striking each other with their swords” (verse 20).

But while the symbol of the earth signaled wonders for Jonathan, it was sadly not the same for Saul. While the Israelites chased down the Philistines out of Micmash, Saul became so possessed with his zeal that he decided to compel his entire army under a vow of a fast until they have overtaken the retreating Philistines. Instead of zeal and rejoicing, “the men of Israel were in distress that day” because of the vow they were forced to swallow (14:24). On the succeeding verse, the Scriptures give up the portent:

“The entire army entered the woods, and there was honey on the ground” (verse 25).

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All of that honey which God provided to refresh His army after those days of standing in fear, famished but numb to its pangs, as they stood in the face of a force “as numerous as the sand on the seashore” (1 Samuel 13:5), from which there was no escape. Now, the sudden burst of opportunity propels them from hiding to hot pursuit and in a short moment of exploding into energy, the spasms of hunger begin kicking in. And God had just the thing for that. In a wooded region nearby a rich libation of wild honey freely flowed to the ground, bringing to life a literal depiction of how Moses and the Israelite slaves imagined the Promised Land, “a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8). It was just too bad that Saul’s zeal kept them from being rejuvenated. But not for Jonathan, the hero who ignited Israelite valiance. Clueless of his father’s vow, he reached out his staff at a honeycomb and lapped some life-giving honey with his hand, and “his eyes brightened,” or in other translations, “his strength was renewed” (1 Samuel 14:28). Before all the salivating Israelite soldiers, Jonathan testified: “My father has made trouble for the country. See how my eyes brightened when I tasted a little of this honey. How much better it would have been if the men had eaten today some of the plunder they took from their enemies. Would not the slaughter of the Philistines have been even greater?” (verses 29 to 30)

Saul’s reckless vow instead turned them into a mob of crazed lunatics who acted like a school of sharks in a feeding frenzy. The moment they overtook the Philistines, “they pounced on the plunder and, taking sheep, cattle and calves, they butchered them on the ground and ate them, together with the blood” (verses 32 and 33). Notice the irony: the wild honey which belonged to human lips did not land on human lips, except on Jonathan’s; the rest got soaked up by the ground. Blood which was meant to drip to the ground, did not fall to the ground but went into the consumption of a hunger-crazed Israelite army who gorged it along with animal meat in disobedient abandon for a moment’s satisfaction.

Saul’s plan to plunder the Philistines never moved on from there. The victory he prayed for in initiating the vow ran aground and almost cost the life of Jonathan. The Israelite army rose into Jonathan’s defense and in an impassioned statement, the earth appears once again, this time in their words:

“Should Jonathan die—he who has brought about this great deliverance in Israel? Never! As surely as the Lord lives, not a hair of his head will fall to the ground, for he did this today with God’s help” (verse 45).

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Saul and Sorcery: Spirits from the Earth

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“I saw gods ascending out of the earth” (1 Samuel 28:13, King James Version).

Now we come to what is probably the most unnerving part of Saul's life. The final prophecy of the Prophet Samuel from beyond the grave revealed the eventuality of Saul's betrayal of God's trust and the bursting of the supernatural cyst that had consumed and festered in his life.

Mere existence became Saul’s only lot after twisting his mandate on the Amalekites. He no longer had any business holding on to his position as king and it was necessary—spiritually vital—for him to relinquish the throne. But Saul’s thirst for the position got the better of him and despite the Prophet Samuel’s declaration that the anointing of the Holy Spirit had abandoned him, he turned to popular opinion in an attempt to counter weigh the flight of the Holy Spirit. So for what could have been about two years of pretending that everything returned business as usual was on the contrary a constant struggle for survival as Saul tried to make it through a day lost, alone, maintaining a precarious balance along a tightrope that hovered over insanity. But by this point, God’s mercy over Saul’s life continued to be evident in the single fact that this virtually dethroned king was given the courtesy to abdicate on his own for it was the only way to redeem his life. This could have been an example of the matter that the Apostle Paul taught in 1 Corinthians 3:15 about the believer whose life being saved “only as one escaping through the flames,” but all his works for God “burned up” in the Day of testing. A literal depiction of this principle was Lot in Genesis 19 whose life was spared when God overthrew the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and the immediate region surrounding these (verse 25). Saul continued to face hope; all he had to do was abandon his dreams of the throne for punishment was about to descend upon it, for the man after God’s own heart had already been anointed and God’s Spirit had already chosen him—after the very moment Saul betrayed God and His directive.

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And judgment did come. In 1 Samuel 28:5, it said that, “When Saul saw the Philistine army [at Shunem], he was afraid; terror filled his heart.” It was the same fear that seized him way back in the thirteenth chapter when he beheld the mighty Philistine army “as numerous as the sand on the seashore” (verse 5) at Micmash, and when Goliath taunted the Israelites for forty days when not one of God’s warriors was willing to face the Philistine champion. In each of the occasions, so great was the dread Saul felt that it made his life flash before his eyes. He feared each battle to be his last as if some prophecy from the Prophet Samuel had told him so. Until this encounter with the Philistine army at Shunem in 1 Samuel 28, there had been no such prophecy foretelling the death of Saul. All there was was his fear. But on the night he consulted a medium, the spirit of the Prophet Samuel returns to finally confirm the fear: “…tomorrow you and your sons will be with me” (verse 19). If the days after Saul’s disobedience cost him his crown, the one night when he came to a medium meant his doom. It was a second act of violation against God’s Law and he set himself on a one-way course to destruction.

The witch told King Saul that she saw “gods ascending out of the earth” (1 Samuel 28:13, King James Version). The original Hebrew used for “gods” is elohim, a plural form of the singular el employed to address magistrates and judges like the Prophet Samuel, and to spiritual beings like angels and gods. Its plural use in referring to a single person is an expression of deference to the person’s supremacy. Though elohim can be commonly applied to other—false—deities and human authority figures, it is one of the most frequently used words in the Old Testament to refer to God. Other reliable Bible versions, however, chooses to specifically translate the “elohim” of 1 Samuel 28:13 as “a spirit,” as did the New International and the New King James, “a spirit coming up out of the ground.” Having been a man of God, should not have the Prophet Samuel descended from heaven? If then, what was the Prophet Samuel—if indeed it was the Prophet Samuel—doing in the ground?

Here we turn to the sovereignty of God. Many times we modern believers have imprisoned our expectations of God to produce a limited, almost mortal, picture of this Eternal Person. We have lost the very significance why we have enthroned Him in heaven at all. Consider these passages in Psalm 115:3, “Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him”; and in 135:6, “The Lord does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths.”

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So in the same way as Jesus chose to die and descend to the grave just to demonstrate that nothing—neither sin nor death—could hold Him in the grave forever, God decided to manifest His supremacy by performing a little supernatural surgery in King Saul’s affair.  So He forged a passage, so to speak, running from heaven, through hell, and emerging in that little dark witch’s hovel in Endor for one last prophecy: a prophecy articulating His frustration over a beloved son who chose to distrust and betray Him in a task he was established for. That night, every demonic cohort who impersonated human souls stood away and helplessly watched God and the Prophet Samuel rend their dark realm in power and authority. The witch through her black magic saw this and she too was helpless to stop it; she was no longer in control. That night, the secret meeting came face to face with “the finger of God” (Exodus 8:19).

The witch suspected that such a sight can only occur in behalf of one whom God and the Prophet Samuel were closely associated to. It was this point when she shrieks, “You are Saul!” (1 Samuel 28:12) It was the intervention of God that gave Saul’s cover away.

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Saul and Sorcery: Who Really Showed Up that Night

There are two general, opposite, and very interesting thoughts--convictions, actually--being espoused regarding the ghost that really appeared that night in that dark hideaway in Endor: was it a familiar spirit (a demon) in disguise as the Prophet Samuel? Or was it the real thing--the Prophet Samuel himself?

A Demon In Disguise?

Because of the involvement of demons, we can at this point understand why many readers believe that it was not the real Prophet Samuel but a masquerading spirit that appeared to Saul on the night of the consultation. The Biblical consideration to this is compelling.

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It is a Biblical tenet that “man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). From this verse, it is understood that the spirit of the deceased is immediately taken to one of two spiritual worlds: heaven or hell. Jesus Christ used this principle in a parable He taught in Luke 16:22 and 23:

“The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.”

“Abraham’s side” in the passage is another name for heaven. In the tale, the rich man requested Abraham to send Lazarus back to earth and warn his brothers about hell (verse 27). The patriarch ruled the appeal out of the question, claiming that the mortal agents of “Moses and the Prophets” serving the purpose of warning other mortals (verse 29). This suggests that a sort of pre-existing mandate stands against heavenly souls returning to the land of the living, imposing that mortal souls that have expired from their earthly lives have no longer any business in the plane of flesh and blood.

Apparitions of the dead seen by the living are, therefore, demon spirits in disguise deceiving and paralyzing hearts and minds under the power of grief or fear. And such was accomplished with Saul after the words of Samuel’s ghost sent him sprawling on the ground petrified (1 Samuel 28:20). Needless to say, the ghost and the entire episode rebuilt the witch’s confidence in her spirit worship and in herself. Then using a simple gesture of urging the king to dine to regain his strength, she confirmed that she had gained the respect of three men who held the conviction that would not suffer a witch to live.

“When the woman came to Saul and saw that he was greatly shaken, she said, ‘Look, your maidservant has obeyed you. I took my life in my hands and did what you told me to do. Now please listen to your servant and let me give you some food so you may eat and have the strength to go on your way.’ He refused and said, ‘I will not eat.’ But his men joined the woman in urging him, and he listened to them. He got up from the ground and sat on the couch. The woman had a fattened calf at the house, which she butchered at once. She took some flour, kneaded it and baked bread without yeast. Then she set it before Saul and his men, and they ate” (verses 21 to 25).

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The Real Thing?

Another perspective holds that it was the real ghost of the Prophet Samuel that appeared before the king. Throughout 1 Samuel 28, no direct reference or indication was made regarding any demonic deception. The texts instead plainly evoke “Samuel” and not anything like, “the spirit that masquerade as Samuel,” or “the impersonating spirit,” or “the spirit mimic,” or even “the familiar spirit.” Examine these verses:

“When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out…” (verse 12).

“Then Saul knew it was Samuel, and he bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground” (verse 14).

“Samuel said to Saul, ‘Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?’” (verse 15)

“Samuel said, ‘Why do you consult me, now that the Lord has turned away from you and become your enemy?” (verse 16)

The Bible itself confirms that it was “Samuel” that appeared that night. The "Samuel" which  was first mentioned in verse 3 was the same one throughout the rest of the chapter.

Though it is a relatively easier and convenient way to explain the appearance of a man of God in a necromantic rite, a lot of Bible students will vehemently resist the suggestion that God would actually use the dark art to send His Word. Well, first of all, God did not use necromancy as an avenue for His message. When the witch saw Samuel rising from the ground, she was no longer in control. God had by then intervened—or interrupted. By His sovereign will.

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Observe that in the eleventh verse, the woman begins her ritual in full confidence of her ability to summon any spirit from the ground. But by the time she recognized the Prophet Samuel, her confidence drained away as quickly as air escapes a punctured oxygen tank underwater. She knew she had no power or authority to summon this man of God; when she cried out at the top of her voice (verse 12), she knew she was no longer in control of the beckoning. That night, the witch came face-to-face with the same helplessness that paralyzed the Egyptian magicians who tried to discredit Moses: “This is the finger of God” (Exodus 8:19).

God and His Sovereign Will: His Right to Intervene

God did not soften His policy on the practice and practitioners of black magic. He did not cooperate that night with the power of the witch. He instead stuck His finger and came in uninvited into the affair, giving Saul the answer he sought and the confirmation of Samuel’s prophecy regarding how this king’s life of rebellion ended up in divination (1 Samuel 15:23).

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 The sovereignty of God is one important aspect that many modern Christians forget in considering His will. For example, certain Charismatic Christian movements during the latter decades of the twentieth century have overstressed the role of faith as a main element that “moves” God, smearing a ridiculous analogy of a vending machine responding to a drop of a
coin in the coin slot. In the same mistake, we have been absorbed in learning the things that “move” God but disregard the fundamental fact that God wields the right to do whatever He wants. Though His Word assures us that He will do what is right and just, He retains the choice to move His sovereign will without securing anybody’s permission.

It was through His sovereign will that He chose Saul king over all Israel (1 Samuel 9:16). And as Saul later in his reign chose to impose his will over God’s, God in turn chose to impose His will to abandon Saul in the last years of his reign and interfere in the séance of his final night on earth.

[We got more, so stay tuned! Yeah, I know, I know it takes around a month, but hey, I'm workin' on that! Like now: a few minutes after I've uploaded the first Saul and Sorcery this month, here I am with the second one! Ain't that somethin'?! Gives ya more to expect next time we continue our exposition on the great King Saul.]

Saul and Sorcery: Of Idols and Demons

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One of King Saul’s decent accomplishments was the banishment of all mediums and spiritists from his kingdom (1 Samuel 28:3). A great dread of Saul fell upon all witches and wizards, prompting them to flee either to regions beyond Israel’s borders or to enemy-occupied territories within the country—so that when he himself later suddenly needed the services of one, he had to skirt incognito around a massive Philistine army assembled over at Shunem (verse 4). He specifically headed for the ancient Israelite town of Endor. It is an intriguing fact that way before the Prophet Samuel ever met Saul, the man of God had already hinted on this place through the mention of “Sisera, the commander of the army of Hazor” (1 Samuel 12:9). Endor lay around the vicinity where this great and ruthless Canaanite general met his defeat in the hands of Barak the Judge. Two hundred years later, Endor came into Philistine control, an ideal place for a sorceress to ply her trade, free from the judgment of Saul. Yet even in this supposed refuge, the terror that gripped the witch when the disguised king came to consult her was such that converted her notoriety into a dagger on her neck.

“’Consult a spirit for me,’ [Saul] said, ‘and bring up for me the one I name.’ But the woman said to him, ‘Surely you know what Saul has done. He has cut off the mediums and spiritists from the land. Why have you set a trap for my life to bring about my death?’ (verses 8-9)

The statement of the witch revealed a terrible fear enshrouding her, forcing her to hide away. It appeared that the fear of God continued to be seen in Saul even as the Spirit had already departed from him. The dread was so great that no bitter grumbling or vengeful slander against the king was noted of the woman.

A Life for a Life: Saul Saves the Witch from God

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Whether the witch was an Israelite or not, the Bible is silent on the matter. But the kingdom was well-known for its law against those who dabbled with the occult arts. If one be caught in Israel summoning a ghost, Leviticus 20:27 had one prescription for him: death by stoning. Unlike in our impression of the punishment, a person condemned to be stoned was not merely pelted to death with fist-sized rocks by a surrounding group of community members. This will take a protracted length of time for the victim to keel over and die. Stoning to death was quick, facilitated by an assailant who smashed the skull of the fated with the biggest rock his strength could wield. It was usual to take a single blow to finish the job; but in cases when the victim survives, another or the same executioner repeats the blow with the same or another, more fatal rock until there is no longer any life in the victim’s body left to drain away. It was a very ignominious way to die, the most shameful method applied by the Israelites to the most shameless violations of human and spiritual rights. In the context of ignominy, stoning accomplished for the Israelites what crucifixion later did for the Romans. And in this context, we could somehow imagine the terror that paralyzed the woman when she realized she was caught red-handed in the same gaslight with the Royal Witchkiller himself!

“Then the woman asked, ‘Whom shall I bring up for you?’ ‘Bring up Samuel,’ he said. When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out at the top of her voice and said to Saul, ‘Why have you deceived me? You are Saul!’” (verses 11-13)


For a person who had worked with death, she was certain that the ghosts she summoned by her sorcery had now come for her. But Saul assured her her life:

“Saul swore to her by the Lord, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, you will not be punished for this’” (verse 10).

According to 1 Chronicles 10:13, Saul committed this violation: “he was unfaithful to the Lord; he did not keep the word of the Lord and even consulted a medium for guidance.” It was yet another case of Saul changing his mind. He allowed a sorceress to live when the Law of Moses stipulated death (Exodus 22:18). He himself consulted one when the Law prohibited it (19:31). Saul sealed his fate more when he protected the medium from his hand. While God prescribed severe judgment on any Israelite who turns to an occultist (Leviticus 20:6), how much graver it would be for a king who does the same!

“So the Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse” (1 Chronicles 13:14).

The king’s weakened physical condition grew worse after the séance. In gratitude for her life, the medium returned the favor to Saul by successfully pleading to him to dine on the slaughtered calf she prepared. After this, we no longer have anything on the witch again. All we can surmise is that she was delivered from her fear, which is more than what we could say about Saul.

The Sin of Witchcraft and the Evil of Idolatry: The Link Between Idols and Demons

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The whole point why witchcraft infuriates God is that it is run by demons. Whether we are talking about voodoo with its Catholic trappings or the Kabala in all its Jewish sophistication, witchcraft is greatly enmeshed with the practice of idolatry—another demonically woven misbelief. The collusiveness of idolatry and witchcraft is so seamless that it reaches a stage when telling them apart becomes utterly irrelevant. It can also be said that witchcraft is idolatry’s credibility. Though the Bible repeatedly reminds us of the initial worthlessness and pointlessness of worshiping idols, the lure, however, oozing out of this false faith has gathered for its own a fierce following that could insulate itself from incendiary tirades of truth and even deny the existence of the Living God to the point of death. An undercurrent that provides substance to this audacity is witchcraft.

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When King Saul forced his own directives against God’s specific orders, he had deliberately carved a path from rebellion to witchcraft. Hence, the Prophet Samuel’s prophetic denunciation: “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft” (1 Samuel 15:23, King James Version). Equally as important, note that the Prophet also exposed the king’s arrogance in the context of idolatry—“and arrogance like the evil of idolatry” (Ibid., New International Version). The Prophet was precise when he cited Saul’s “stubbornness” (Ibid., King James Version). Saul continued to hold on to the throne as Israel’s king even when the Prophet Samuel declared two times, in their final encounter in 1 Samuel 15, that God had rejected him as king right then; the Divine verdict was even reinforced through the allegory of the Prophet’s robe being torn away (verses 27 to 28). After all this, Saul started down a trail haunted by demons. In 16:14, with the Spirit of the Lord gone from his life, an evil spirit came to terrorize him; in 18:10, another evil spirit oppresses him and arouses him to kill David; in the twenty-eighth chapter, he decides to consult a witch. After his grim death, the Philistines take his body and offer it up as a victory offering to their idols.

“The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the dead, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. They cut off his head and stripped off his armor, and they sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to proclaim the news in the temple of their idols and among the people. They put his armor in the temple of the Ashtoreths and fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan” (31:8 to 10).

It is uncanny how the Bible substantiates with several references the unholy bond between idolatry and witchcraft, in the premise that both are devises of demons.

The Apostle Paul taught about the collusion idols and demons in 1 Corinthians 10:20 to 21: 

“No, but the sacrifice of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s Table and the table of demons.”

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The Apostle John the Revelator documented how people of the future would “not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood” (Revelation 9:20). In association to idolatry, the Apostle identifies into its web the wickedness and perversions all “murders, the magic arts…sexual immorality” and “thefts” (verse 21). Even in enumerating those condemned to everlasting torment, the mere mention of “those who practice the magic arts” provided him the inclination to include “the idolaters” (21:8).

[More to come! Oh, yeah. The Bible version I used, unless indicated otherwise, was the New International Version.]

Lessons From the Life of King Saul: A Man After God's Own Heart

Like many things in the Israelite culture, the king was intended to be a living symbol of the promised Christ. And Saul, being honored to be the first, was groomed to be the most resplendent, the closest likeness of the Messiah. His very reign as king takes after that of the Messiah’s. The intended reward of winning God’s campaigns reveals this. Had he plunged into battle against the numerically superior Philistines in Micmash, believing that God would do the same to them as to the Ammonites in 1 Samuel 11, God could have not only won him the victory that day but also “established [his] kingdom over Israel for all time” (1 Samuel 13:13). It was clear at that point alone that Saul was not the one after God’s own heart, as God’s Spirit immediately embarked to seek out the one who was, whose kingdom He would later approve and establish. In spite of this, he was continued to be tolerated by God upon the throne until chapter 15 when his defiance of the mandate on completely annihilating the Amalekites demanded the immediate abdication of the crown.

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The Prophet Samuel accused Saul of changing his mind. This was of no trivial matter as we today might understand. The changing of Saul’s mind referred to his inveterate disobedience to God’s commands. God would never violate His will. And because Saul was God’s most prominent earthly representation, God expected Saul’s will to be one with His. The latter would think as God would think, would act as He would act, speak as He would speak. This meant that the king frequented God’s presence in prayer, in study of the Scriptures, and in worship. Saul made a habit of this, “prophesying in his house” (1 Samuel 18:10). A part of an Israelite king’s calling is to “shadow” the Almighty. A modern-day Christian will relate to this as his daily devotions when much of the same activity is performed with the chances to speak to, learn of, praise God and experience His presence are taken. Daily devotions have not changed much from ancient times, only that an Israelite king had to do it more. 

Jesus the King, Whom Saul Was Supposed to have Typifed:

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Spending time in the presence of God made one like God. The Israelite kings and prophets knew this. The people knew this. It was an ideal belief that beholding the king was to perfectly examine the image of God. Let it be clear, however, that the king was not God or a god. Kinghood did not elevate a mortal into any level of divinity. Such an understanding would violate the First Commandment. Nor was a king equal to God. But as Moses was to the Israelites during their desert wandering days, a king’s function was to be an intermediary between Him and His people. His symbol was to be a lasting reminder of the promised Messiah until the appointed time of His visitation.

When Jesus came to earth, though His first visitation was not for His installation as King but as One to be “offered to bear the sins of many” (Hebrews 9:28 King James Version), He nonetheless embodied the essence of God’s King and Champion. Jesus referred to Himself as King. In Matthew 27:11, He confirmed Pilate’s inquiry on whether he was “the king of the Jews.” Clearly, He is the King of God’s children, not merely those who called themselves the children of Abraham (Luke 3:8). The Apostle Paul confirmed this in Romans 9:6-9:

“For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.”

The life of Jesus reflected how the spiritual life of an Israelite king should have been. Indeed, He even hinted on when He said, “I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. I always do what pleases him” (John 8:28-29). And again, “I am telling you what I have seen in my Father’s presence” (v.39). Jesus’ teachings conveyed so much regarding His true Kingship, the very kingship God prescribed for Israel. The true kingship Saul was required to follow was to “honor” God (v.49), “not seeking glory for [himself]” (v.50). A king was required to know God, even as Jesus knew Him (v.55). And in adopting these mission statements, a king would be glorified by God even as He glorified Jesus (v.54), even as He glorified King David in 2 Samuel 7 after he began to set out to build God a holy temple.

The essence of a king’s life was obedience to God, even as Jesus’ life was totally lived in obedience. In spite of the status, a king maintained humility—not in poverty and austerity, but in honest assessment of his place in relation to God’s will: as a conduit of God’s purpose for His people. In this humility was founded Jesus’ confidence:

“Again the high priest asked him, ‘Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?’ ‘I am,’ said Jesus. ‘And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven’” (Mark 14:61-62).

"Are you the King of the Jews?" Pilate asked. One of the honest questions Pilate asked Jesus. This one He answers with complete honesty coupled with boldness: "You have said so" (Matthew 27:11, Mark 15:2, Luke 23:3). In John 18:34, He offers a very uncanny reply: "Is that your own idea, or did others talk to you about me?" In spite of His weakened state, Jesus was still willing to engage Pilate into a talk for the salvation of his eternal soul, much like the one He had with Nicodemus back in John 3. Photo credit: Brooklyn Museum/Corbis.

And this was not the mere delusional raving of one who had an overproduction of hormonal morphine due to terror and severe beatings. In Acts 7:55 the deacon Stephen, Christianity’s first martyr, saw “heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” The writer of the Book of Hebrews quoted King David the poetic singing the Father reserved for Jesus: “You are my Son; today I have become your Father” (Hebrews 1:5 and Psalm 2:7). The honor the Father afforded Jesus was so profound that He even called Him “God” in Hebrews 1:8-9:

“But about the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.’”

Indeed, the entire first chapter of Hebrews was dedicated to the Father’s honoring of Jesus the Son.

Who else but royalty would know that Jesus was King? There were the Persian magi who anticipated with great respect the coming of the King of the Jews. And there was the pretender who feared the coming of this One and True King, whose throne he allegedly owned. Photo credit: Brooklyn Museum/Corbis.

Saul Sought Honor for Himself:

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It was supposed to be something the same for Saul if he battled to curb his rebellious streak. The moment Saul decided to change his mind and preserve the life of the Amalekite King Agag and the choice of the Amalekite cattle, sheep, calves, and lambs, God saw him turn away from Him.

“Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel: ‘I am grieved that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions” (1 Samuel 15:10-11).

And the Prophet Samuel, ever the man who felt what God felt, grieved with God. The following passage said that “Samuel was troubled, and he cried out to the Lord all that night.” Early the next day, he went to confront Saul and deliver God’s message. That was the last time the Prophet came face-to-face with the very first one he anointed as king, the fair one who hid among the baggage to escape detection on his inauguration as king. The one heart God longed for with a king was shared at that time with the Prophet Samuel as they grieved for the spiritual fall of Saul (15:35).

The Prophet Samuel’s rebuke to Saul went as such: “For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry” (15:23). It has been discussed earlier that a king, as based in Jesus’ example, did not seek glory for himself but for God. A king must never claim equality with God nor must he allege that he was a god like God. One well-known spiritual figure who aspired for this lost his place in heaven:

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“How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cat down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High’” (Isaiah 14:12-14).

And because God honors His king, a king who turns corrupt and forgets his place in God loses his place in God, like the same “morning star,” who was, in Ezekiel 28:12-19, “the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty,” who lived “in Eden the garden of God,” adorned with “every precious stone,” “anointed as a guardian cherub,” who stood on “the holy mount of God” and “walked among the fiery stones,” “blameless” in all his ways. But “wickedness was found” in him. He was “filled with violence” and he sinned. On account of his beauty he became proud and he corrupted his wisdom because of his splendor.

This may well outline Saul’s life. In 2 Samuel 21:1, God recalled the House of Saul and called it “blood-stained.” In 1 Samuel 14:47, the victory of Saul over all his enemies was marred by great violence. The terror he exhibited in the battlefield was described as “zeal,” or bloodlust. The zeal he displayed, however, was not the problem. Even the priest Phinehas in Numbers 25:7 drove a spear through the bodies of a fornicating Israelite and his consort to turn the wrath of God against His idolatrous people.  God commended him for this:

“The Lord said to Moses, ‘Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites; for he was zealous as I am for my honor among them, so that in my zeal I did not put an end to them. Therefore tell him that I am making my covenant of peace with him. He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honor of his god and made atonement for the Israelites’” (Numbers 25:10–13).

The focus of Saul’s zeal, on the other hand, was not for God’s honor. In his murderous campaign against the Gibeonites, a people whom the Israelites swore on an oath never to kill, it said that it was “for Israel and Judah” (2 Samuel 21:1). Had he applied this same zeal on the Amalekites, he might have received a great reward from God as did Phinehas.

But the boldest act of enmity against God is found in 1 Samuel 22 when he threatened with death Ahimelech priest of Nob and his family (v.16), ordered the death of the priests of the Lord (v.17, 18), and sanctioned the slaughter of the men, women, children, cattle, donkey, and sheep of Nob (v.19). The reason for the genocide: “because they too have sided with David. They knew he was fleeing, yet they did not tell me” (v.17). “Me,” of course, being Saul.

The Sea People, known in the Bible as the Philistines. A bitter rival during Saul's time which cost him God's favor for the throne forever. Photo credit: Charles & Josette Lenars/CORBIS

We have learned in our earlier lessons that Saul, in his fallen spiritual mentality, focused on his popularity. He realized that God was no longer with him to establish his rule; he knew full well that the withdrawal of God’s Spirit from him meant abdication of the throne, and he was not willing to this. The next best way in his understanding to ensure he stays in power was through popular opinion. This meant listening to what the people wanted and giving, or giving in, to it. Saul was predisposed to this. We can recall how he admitted to offering up the burnt offerings intended for the Prophet Samuel to sacrifice because he saw that his soldiers were scattering (1 Samuel 13:11). In 15:21, Saul conveniently blamed the soldiers for taking the “sheep and cattle from the plunder…in order to sacrifice them to the Lord.” Later on, he affirmed that he was “afraid of the people” (v.24) and therefore disobeys God’s mandate. Popular opinion meant so much to Saul. This weakness manifested in his leadership of his army. In spite of a following of valiant soldiers whose hearts God had touched from his inauguration as king (1 Samuel 10:26), Saul miserably failed as a commander-in-chief. On several occasions he lost control over his army, like the time when his tired and hungry force was reduced into a dispersion of ravenous wild men pouncing on enemy plunder, butchering sheep, cattle and calves on the ground where they stood and gorging on them together with the blood (1 Samuel 14:32). In this same story, the discipline of his son Jonathan was beyond him in that the latter was out on his own venture against a Philistine detachment and was uninformed of the rash vow Saul had made against eating food before nightfall and before routing the Philistines (v.24). 

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In Saul’s life as king, he was known as a valiant fighter, a hero who delivered Israel from the hands of those who had plundered them, including the Amalekites (1 Samuel 14:48). He was deliverer. And as with all deliverers, songs of them were sung, alluding to the “thousands” he had slain. Notice, however, to where  the battles were dedicated:

“He fought valiantly and defeated the Amalekites, delivering Israel from the hands of those who had plundered them.”

He was a fierce fighter—“Cursed be any man who eats food before evening comes, before I have avenged myself on my enemies” (1 Samuel 14:24)—with a zeal that fought “for Israel and Judah” (2 Samuel 21:2). And because of the love he showed for the kingdom, he expected the kingdom to love him back by keeping him on the throne. If his institution upon the throne were based on democracy, his chance of maintaining power may have been great.

On the night before his death, he comes face to face with the inevitable truth of the source of his political right and his life:

“Because you did not obey the Lord…the Lord has done this for you today. The Lord will hand over both Israel and you to the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The Lord will also hand over the army of Israel to the Philistines” (verses 18-19).

On the day of the fateful battle, judgment came surely to Saul. And the descent of his death was not as swift and painless as an arrow through the heart or a blade through the vital gut. He suffered great seeking death which toyed with him as a child frolicking in a game of tag. As he squirmed in the battlefield that day he was drenched in the very fear he inebriated himself with from the day he lit the torch of his distrust and defiance to God’s command.

What could have been for Saul, as based on the examples of Kings Jehoicachin and David:

Jehoiachin:

Saul did not survive the battlefield. It was different from what another king centuries after Saul experienced when Israel came into Babylonian control. The Southern Israelite kingdom of Judah fell into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar in 597 B.C. The Mesopotamian monarch exiled Jerusalem’s King Jehoiachin to Babylon. For about forty years, Jehoiachin was a prisoner but later set free in the reign of Evil-Merodach (2 Kings 25:27). This succeeding ruler to Jehoiachin’s captor “released Jehoiachin from prison…spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat of honor higher than those of the other kings who were with him in Babylon” (verses 27-28). Two more verses continue to say, “So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes and for the rest of his life ate regularly at the king’s table. Day by day the king gave Jehoiachin a regular allowance as long as he lived.”

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David:

What was the difference between Saul and Jehoiachin? In answering this, we must revise the question and put King David into the picture in place of Jehoiachin. God made a tremendous promise of preservation of his lineage and rule of Israel. In 2 Samuel 7:11-12, the Prophet Nathan reports to David the dream he had the night before:

“The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you. When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body.”

In ending the message of God to David: “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; and your throne will be established forever” (v.17).

 This promise should have been Saul’s had he not distrusted the deliverance of God against the Philistine armies assembled at Micmash, as we have read many times in 1 Samuel 13. Down the years, in spite of Israel’s apostasy, God remained faithful to His promise. In 1 Kings 11:32, He remembered David and saved Judah, elevating the status of this tribe into a kingdom, for his rule to remain unbroken through the succession of his offspring. In 2 Kings 19:34 and 20:6, God in His power would not allow the destruction of Jerusalem “for the sake of …David,” the latter verse item includes the healing of King Hezekiah who was by then “ill and was at the point of death” (verse 1). The Prophet Isaiah included this event in his book in Isaiah 34:35. Other wonderful prophecies regarding God’s promise to David and his everlasting rule can be read in Ezekiel 34:23 to 24 and 37:25.

The confidence of David was God and His promises. David understood that it was God and for His purpose that he was placed on the throne, as expressed in his prayer of thanksgiving in 2 Samuel 7:25 to 26: “And now, Lord God, keep forever the promise you have made concerning your servant and his house. Do as you promised, so that your name will be great forever. Then men will say, ‘The Lord Almighty is God over Israel!’ And the house of your servant David will be established before you.” David was eager for the promise of God to be fulfilled in his life—that is, to establish his throne forever (verse 16)—to see the purpose of God fully accomplished on earth.