Mount Tabor & The Witch Of Endor What We Know

From Sefer Shmuel
In his desperation after being forsaken by Hashem, and only after his routine methods of communication with Hashem had failed (dreams, urim vetumim, and Nevi'im), Saul ironically turned to a witch named EnDor to conjure up the spirit of Shmuel, who had recently died. After Shmuel's death and burial with due mourning ceremonies in Ramah, Saul had driven all necromancers and those who practice witchcraft from the land. But the Plishtim gathered their forces and encamped in Shunem, and to meet them Saul mustered his army on Gilboa. Daunted bythe sight of the enemy's numbers, Saul tried to communicate with Hashem, but he received no answer. In this terrible prediciment, he inquires for a woman , "who possesses a talisman" to invoke the dead," and is informed that one is in Endor. Disguised, Saul goes to the woman's lodgings at night and bids her summon for him the one whom he will name. The witch suspects a trap, and refuses to comply by the laws that Saul himself had commanded. However, assured of immunity, she summons Shmuel at Saul's request. At the sight of Samuel she cries out with a loud voice, and charges the king, whom she immediately recognizes, with having deceived her. Saul allays her fears and makes her tell him what she has seen. She saw "elohim" coming up out of the earth"; "an old man . . . wrapped in a cloak." Before the spirit (unseen) Saul prostrates himself. Samuel complains at being disturbed, but Saul pleads the serious plight of his army and his abandonment by Hashem. Shmuel, however, refuses to give any counsel, and announces the impending downfall of the king and his dynasty. Saul faints, partly from physical exhaustion due to lack of food. The witch attempts to comfort him, and invites him to partake of her hospitality. Saul at first refuses, but is finally prevailed upon by the combined entreaties of the woman and his servants. He eats and departs to his fate. Saul the King and his sons die the next day in battle.

From Rabbinical Literature
While in Sefer Shmuel the woman remains anonymous, the Midrash maintains that the Witch of Endor was Zephaniah, the mother of Abner (Yalḳ, Shmuel. 140, from Pirḳe R. El.). That a Spirit appearance is here described is inferred from the repeated emphasis laid on the statement that Shmuel had died and had been buried (Shmuel Aleph. xxv. 1, xxviii. 3), by which the assumption that Shmuel was still living when summoned, is discredited (Tosef., Soṭah, xi. 5). Still he was invoked during the first twelve months after his death, when, according to the Rabbis, the spirit still hovers near the body (Shab. 152b). In connection with the incidents of the story the Rabbis have developed the theory that the necromancer sees the spirit but is unable to hear his speech, while the person at whose instance the spirit is called hears the voice but fails to see; bystanders neither hear nor see (Yalḳ., l.c.; Redaḳ and RaLBaG's commentaries). The outcry of the woman at the sight of Shmuel was due to his rising in an unusual way—upright, not, as she expected, in a horizontal position (comp. LXX. in pasuk yud daled).