“Witchcraft was hung, in History,
But History and I
Find all the Witchcraft that we need
Around us, every Day—”
We’ll never know her name, but the medicine woman of En-Dor, who knew how to communicate with the dead and comfort the living is forever known for her super powers. She delivers to a shaking King Saul the last words that define his tragic reign - and also cooks him a lavish last supper, for which she is seldom remembered or thanked.
Millions of women have been killed over the centuries, as well as men and many others on the gender spectrum, for dabbling in the spiritual arts that defy definitive boundaries/hierarchies and define the vast expanse of human curiosity and connection to the natural & supernatural worlds. In our western history, inspired by the bible , many of these victims were directly accused by verses and stories that demonize such spiritual wisdom as evil ‘witchcraft’.
But in this book that made outlawing the occult a norm of lethal consequences, today’s dramatic story is a stand-alone that puzzled classical interpreters for generations. Most early rabbinic and medieval Jewish interpreters regard the whole thing as an allegory or a fantasy of Saul’s imagination. They were perhaps too scared to give credence to the wildly popular folk-traditions - and non-male authority power - that have always been at the center or the fringe of religious life, even for Jews. But in recent times there’s much more curiosity and scholarly recognition, not just in New Age circles, that what’s told here matches the finest oldest arts of divination, practiced forever, still under attack in today’s lingering patriarchal reality.
King Saul himself was the one to ban all sorcery in Israel, in what would prove to be a futile move. When the war with the Philistines is at his gate and none of the official oracles are working - he asks his staff, in despair, to find him any remaining magicians or witches to guide his way. They find one witch who survived the purge, and off he goes to En Dor, a small village in the Jezreel Valley, hungry for divination at any price:
וַיִּתְחַפֵּ֣שׂ שָׁא֗וּל וַיִּלְבַּשׁ֙ בְּגָדִ֣ים אֲחֵרִ֔ים וַיֵּ֣לֶךְ ה֗וּא וּשְׁנֵ֤י אֲנָשִׁים֙ עִמּ֔וֹ וַיָּבֹ֥אוּ אֶל־הָאִשָּׁ֖ה לָ֑יְלָה וַיֹּ֗אמֶר קָסֳמִי־נָ֥א לִי֙ בָּא֔וֹב וְהַ֣עֲלִי לִ֔י אֵ֥ת אֲשֶׁר־אֹמַ֖ר אֵלָֽיִךְ׃
“Saul disguised himself; he put on different clothes and set out with two men. They came to the woman by night, and he said, “Please divine for me by a ghost. Bring up for me the one I shall name to you.”
The Hebrew word used for ‘divine for me’ is ‘Ob’ - a particular method for raising the dead. And there it is - the wise woman, after some suspicion, does her thing and an apparition appears - an old man clad in a familiar, famous coat.
She screams - and immediately knows who has been raised up and who’s the disguised man who’s come to her for help.
In her "Reading Women of the Bible", the late scholar Tikvah Frymer-Kensky tries to unpack what may have happened in this mysterious scene:
“The story doesn’t tell us how the necromancer conjured Samuel. That is left as the secrets of the trade, and it is only through comparative studies that we conclude that the ’Ob’ might be a pit or trench that the necromancer filled with blood or animal parts or possibly a skull filled with the same.
In The Odyssey Circe sends Odysseus to the very gate of Hades to consult the great sage Tiresias. She gives him explicit directions to dig a pit, to pour libations, and to let the blood of animals stream into the pit so that the shades will swarm up (Odyssey 10:504–40). The very word for the necromancer’s trench, kosmos (in Greek), may be a loan from the Semitic word Qsm, “conjure,” the verb with which Saul initiates the necromancy. Mesopotamian parallels suggest that the ‘Ob’ may have been a skull, perhaps a plastered skull with which the woman poured libations.”
However it happened, the dead prophet’s message is ominous: Tomorrow, he tells Saul, you and your sons will join me down here. Game over. The Philistines will win.
The woman now switches roles - from necromancer to nourisher. She becomes Saul’s midwife, a ‘Death-Doula’.
Frymer-Kensky continues:
“Saul has reached the end of his strength. He has been fasting, either because of depression or to petition God. And now an amazingly flattering portrait emerges of a woman who was, after all, involved in an outlawed activity. She, unlike Samuel, will give him something concrete to do: he can at least eat...
She reminds him that his job is not finished, that he needs his strength “when you go on your way,” perhaps an allusion to his final acts as he goes to his fate. And she won’t take no for an answer. She and Saul’s servants keep urging him until he agrees to eat. The necromancer becomes the very model of Israelite hospitality. ... Her meal marks a fitting end to Saul’s kingship. At the beginning of Samuel’s career, his parents Hannah and Elkanah slaughtered an ox when they brought their son to Eli, and Hannah offered thanksgiving that included the prediction of monarchy.. Now, at the end of Saul’s reign, the necromancer is the counterpart to both Hannah and Samuel, and her meal resonates with theirs.
This is not an evil woman. Quite the contrary, the necromancer is presented as good and generous. Her ability to communicate with spirits does not make h
er evil. Her craft is outlawed because it is an uncontrollable and ungovernable access to divine knowledge. But it is effective, and it can be benevolent.
The necromancer has the terrible task of channeling an announcement of doom, but she can at least give Saul the courage and strength to face it.”
Later generations made all these wise women seem like evil doers and the word ‘witch’ became an idiom of blame and shame. But what are we learning here about the powers of kindness to help us deal with even the worst chapters of our life, even into death?
For one more creative approach to this story, check out this short video -- God's Eyebrows - created and performed by wise poet and writer Alexander Nemser.
And as for the king, after what would be his lavish last supper, he goes off to the battlefield.
Image by @WilliamBlake
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