1 Samuel 28:15

SAMUEL'S MESSAGE TO KING SAUL

"Then Samuel said to Saul, `Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up'? Saul answered, `I am in great distress; for the Philistines are warring against me, and God has turned away from me and answers me no more, either by prophets or by dreams; therefore I have summoned you up to tell me what I should do.' And Samuel said, `Why then do you ask me, since the Lord has turned from you and become your enemy? The Lord has done to you as he spoke by me; for the Lord 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, and did not carry out his fierce wrath against Amalek, therefore the Lord has done this thing to you this day. Moreover the Lord will give Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines; and tomorrow you and your sons shall be with me; the Lord will give the army of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines.'"

"Samuel said, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up"?" (1 Samuel 28:15). Note that the alleged "Samuel" here does not credit the Lord with having brought him up, but charges Saul with having done it. Such a lie was of Satan, not of God. Saul never, in a million years, had the power through some abominable witch to raise the dead!

The bitter words to Saul found throughout most of this paragraph could not therefore be the true words of the prophet Samuel. R. P. Smith identified them as the words of the abominable witch. "The woman gladly took a bitter revenge on the man who had cruelly put to death nearly all of her contemporary professional mediums. She had recognized Saul as her hated enemy as soon as he entered her place, but professed not to know him till his name was revealed to her by the pretended apparition, in the name of which she reproached him for his crimes and announced to him what everybody in Israel already knew, that God would take away his kingdom and give it to David. In view of Deuteronomy 18:10, we cannot believe that the Bible would set before us an instance of witchcraft employed with Divine sanction for holy purposes."[24]