Eating the Blood: Saul and the Witch of Endor

I have always wondered what the connection between witchcraft, rebellion, and eating blood had to do with one another in the Old Testament laws. My wife taught at a local Christian school last year and something the administration liked to do was to quote from the Torah laws to the kids. One verse they especially enjoyed using out of context in order to keep kids “in line” was “rebellion is as the sin of divination.” I have wondered about that verse a number of times, along with the verse that condemns divination immediately after having condemned the eating of blood. I have wondered how these commands might correlate with one another, and after reading Pamela Tamarkin Reis’s article “Eating the Blood: Saul and the Witch of Endor,” I believe I have come to see how all of these commands are connected to each other in the life of Saul in the way that he broke all of them. I believe I am beginning to understand better how the eating of blood is related to divination and how both of these things are related to rebellion.

This article begins by saying that theologians have long been confused about how to interpret and to look at the Witch of Endor in the narrative of Saul. Some early church fathers thought that her attitude and her hospitality should be emulated and that she was a better servant than was Saul. Some have even gone so far as to say she pre-figured Christ. She provides Saul with a meal which allows him to revive his strength and go to face his immanent death in battle. The author, however, states that she believes the witch’s acts to be not acts of hospitality but of self-preservation. While Saul becomes petrified with fear the witch recognizes her peril and acts in order to save herself. The meal which she provides for Saul should not be interpreted as a hospitable meal, but as a part of the séance itself. Reis says “it is a mantic sacrifice to the dead entailing the stringently proscribed eating of blood.” The witch realizes that she has helped Saul, but Saul is the one who has attempted to stamp out all divination in the land, putting mediums to death. However, Saul has nonetheless still come to her and has successfully been delivered an ominous message from the realm of the dead. At this, Saul realizes that he has lost all hope. The witch recognizes this and provides this sacrifice to the spirits so that they may somehow reverse the death sentence they have placed on Saul’s head. In doing this, the witch is attempting to save Saul’s life so that her own life may be saved. Saul is, after all, the one who had originally tried to stamp out all mediums from the land, and how she has delivered a message of death to him. It would seem that the appropriate response of Saul would be to kill this messenger.

The witch recognizes her peril and provides Saul with a sacrifice to the spirits, or to the “gods” as she calls them. She also recognizes that Saul is extremely hungry, since he appears to have fasted for a full day in preparation for this séance. Reis also points out that this sharing of the meal also indicates a sort of covenant or relationship between Saul and the witch being established. It indicates that they are making an agreement to help and not harm each other.

The set up for this story reminds the reader that Samuel has died and also that Saul had eradicated the diviners from the land. Also, it sets up the battle that is to come between the Philistines and the Israelites. Saul is filled with fear at the approach of the Philistines and he attempts to make contact with God, but God does not answer him “neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.” God had already rejected Saul and this had not changed. Instead of repentance, Saul wishes to use God to protect him. What Saul desires is the occult. Saul cannot find the answers he desires from God so he tells his servant to go seek out a witch. This is in reference to Leviticus 19:31 where God says, “'Do not seek out a witch', because Ί am the Lord'.”

The proximity of the witch to Saul’s camp is also discussed. Saul puts on a disguise and they travel to go meet with her. Some wonder if Saul wears a disguise because he is crossing into enemy territory, the place where mediums have been expelled. However, this does not make sense because what is driving Saul is his great fear of the Philistines. It would not follow that he would venture into their territory. What seems more likely is that mediums still existed within Israel’s boundaries and that Saul’s eradication of the spiritists had not been completely thorough. The reason he wears a disguise then seems to be that he does not want his own people or the witch to recognize him as the king. He gets rid of his royal robes so as to not draw attention to himself and what he is doing. The words used to describe Saul’s process of disguising himself are interesting. He “puts on” these clothes similar to how one “puts on” righteousness, majesty, or desolation elsewhere in scripture. Also, the word for “clothing” that is used here has the same root as the word “treachery,” so the text is hinting by word-play that Saul is putting on treachery.

This root-word is also used previously when Saul accuses his army of being treacherous when he discovers them eating upon the blood of the animals. There seems to be a difference between the command to not eat blood and the command to not eat upon or on the blood. This first command is related to the belief that the life of the creature is in the blood, so eating its blood is disrespectful of life itself. The second command has to do with participating in an evil sacrifice to other gods, an act of witchcraft where the blood of the animal is eaten. It can be argued then that when Saul finds his army eating upon the blood, the text may be implying that his army was participating in pagan sacrificial rituals. However, not everyone agrees with this interpretation. Some also say that the command to not eat upon the blood is not related to the command immediately following it to not practice divination. It is relates more to not eating the flesh of a live animal or not eating the flesh of the sacrifice before the blood has been offered up. However, many would still interpret the eating of the blood to be associated with acts of sorcery.

The witch hesitates to work for Saul because she knows that the king has fiercely tried to eliminate her kind and she fears he may turn her in. She does not seem to recognize that she is speaking to Saul himself. The irony is the witch reminds Saul of his own stance against what he is about to do. She also says Saul has “cut” off the sorcerers, another ironic use of words because later Saul and the witch seem to be “cutting” a covenant together. Saul also reassures the witch in the name of the Lord, which is ironic considering his actions are acts against the Lord.

There seems to be much confusion about the point at which the witch recognizes Saul for who he really is. It is at the point when she sees Samuel rising up out of the ground. Some say that she realized from the beginning that he was really Saul because of his request to see Samuel and was only pretending to not recognize him. The reasoning here is that only the king would request to see Saul right before a significant battle. Some also say that the witch recognized that it was truly Saul because Saul is the only person Samuel would have risen up to appear to. The fact that her conjuring actually worked caused her to realize that it was Saul who was with her. Also, some have interpreted that she recognized Samuel and thus Saul before Samuel had fully emerged because only spirits who were important rose from the ground head first. Other spirits apparently rose upside down. Others further say that the aura of the prophet’s presence cast away all deception taking place so that the witch immediately recognized Saul when Samuel appeared. The author states that Samuel had likely been summoned in vain by others, but that he only appeared for Saul because of his close relationship with Saul. Previously in the story of Saul, Samuel is seen rejoicing over Saul and mourning over Saul and praying on Saul’s behalf after he has been rejected by God to the point that God chastises Samuel for making a case for Saul after God has already rejected him. Samuel appears because of his love for Saul. Samuel’s last words to Saul are seen as a call to repentance and a condemning of the path Saul has chosen to take. Samuel utters the name of YHWH seven times in his message from the grave.

The text rarely uses the name of Saul once he dons his disguise as a way of showing how he is hiding his identity. He does not want people to know that he is the king. However, he does use his kingly authority once the witch recognizes him. He uses it when he tells her to not be afraid of him. It is also interesting that when the ghost appears she is not afraid of it but rather of Saul.

Saul’s requests of Samuel are very much centered upon himself. He tells Saul of his own fear and he wants to know what he should do against the Philistines. He is not concerned with his estranged relationship with God, except in the sense that he no longer is able to receive reliable military advice. Samuel’s response then is a reordering of Saul’s priorities to the way they ought to be. Samuel is calling Saul to repentance. Samuel also informs him that he and his sons will die the following day and that he is running out of time. He indicates that the Philistines will rout the Israelites. As long as Samuel had judged, the Philistines had been able to take away any territory from Israel so Saul hoped that Samuel would be able to continue this even after this death. However, Samuel does not provide this assurance for Saul at this point. Saul, though, is as unwilling to listen to Samuel as he was to God, and he does not do as Samuel commands him. He collapses to the ground at Samuel’s disappearance after relaying the divine judgment.

After this the witch begins to act in order to save herself. She approaches Saul perhaps in a sexual sort of way. The text says that she “comes to Saul” in the sense that she may have “come on to Saul” or approached him in a sexual manner. However, she seems to change her tactic when she realizes that Saul is overcome with fear. She then offers him the meal, seeing his weakness and hunger from his 24-hour fast. Also, the words which accompany the meal she offers Saul are a proposition. She refers to herself as Saul’s handmaid and tells him that she has placed her life in his hands. She offers him food, indicating that he may place his life in her hands. This makes more sense if the meal is part of the sacrifice to the spirits to appease them. Saul consents to this, making a covenant with her. He is agreeing to save her life from his punishment if she tries to save his life by interceding on his behalf to the spirits. Saul gives in to her pressing in typical Saul fashion, just as he had given in to the pressure placed on him by the people at other times, such as when he broke his oath in order to protect Jonathan and when he offered an improper sacrifice to save himself from the Philistines. Here he is again seen to be breaking his oath in order to protect someone deserving to die as well as offering up an improper sacrifice. He gives into pressure in the same ways he has before. Though Saul always fails to listen to the voice of God and of Samuel, he seems never to fail to listen to the voices of others.

The author also points out the position Saul takes upon the bed at this point. His position is a reminder of two other accounts involving some form of idolatry. The first relates to the idol or “teraphim” of Laban which Rachel steals and hides in her place of rest. She fails to rise. Also, this word is used when Michal protects David from Saul’s men, using a “teraphim” as a decoy by placing it in David’s bed. The text seems to be implying that Saul continues to participate in the worship of other gods. Further, when the witch kills the calf for the meal, the word used is not the word for butchering or slaughtering it, but rather the word for sacrificing it. The author also points out that a great deal of detail is given as the witch prepares the unleavened bread, a task which does not take an exceptionally long time, but that the preparation of the calf is not described in detail. This may mean that that calf was not in fact cooked properly and that it was intended to be eaten raw and with the blood still in it as a continued part of this séance. Here, Saul, the representative of Yahweh, is seen making a covenant with the enemies of Yahweh.

The offering of the witch on Saul’s behalf, however, does not work out, and the prophecy of Samuel from the grave does indeed come true. One would think that the message given to Saul would cause the reader to feel sorry for him, but it does not. Saul’s response causes the reader to view him with indignation, even more so than the witch herself. Saul is seen as a worse person than the witch. The ironic end to this is that as Saul watches his sons die and realizes that he is next, he becomes afraid of life itself. Up until this point, his survival was what appeared to be most important to him and was what drove him to go to the witch in the first place. Now, however, he despairs of life itself, and the very thing he desired most is not the thing that has become a horror to him. So he kills himself.

Saul’s response to his sin is also compared to David’s response to his sin. When Saul hears that he and his sons will die, his response is one of anguish and he participates in the occult in order to manipulate the divine judgment. He “sits up” to engage in pagan sacrifice and the eating of blood. On the other hand, when David is told that his son will die for his sin, he reacts with anguish and pleads with God himself to take away this punishment rather than participating in the occult. After his anguish, David also “sits up,” but he washes his face and worships God rather than making a covenant with a witch and eating blood as Saul did. This shows how the Davidic monarchy is better than Saul’s monarchy.