Saul' s third offence and a'eath. —The measure of Saul's iniquity, now almost full, was completed by an act of direct treason against Jehovah the God of Israel (Exod. xxii. IS ; Lev. xix. 3r ; xx. 27 ; Deut. xviii. ro, rr). Saul, probably in a fit of , zeal, and perhaps as some atonement for his dis obedience in other respects, had executed the penalty of the law on those who practised necro mancy and divination (I Sam. xxviii. 3). Now, however, forsaken of God, who gave him no oracles, and rendered, by a course of wickedness, both des perate and infatuated, he requested his attendants to seek him a woman who had a familiar spirit (which is the loose rendering in the English Bible of the, expression occurring twice in ver. 7, rut. 2.1N n%/2, a woman a mistress of Ob ;" habens Pythonem,' Vulg.), that he might obtain from her that direction which Jehovah refused to afford him. The question as to the character of the ap parition evoked by the witch of Endor falls more properly- to be considered under other articles [DiviNATroN ; WiTcH] ; but we may remark that the king himself manifestly both saw and conversed with the phantom, whatever it was, which appeared in the form and spoke in the character of Samuel, and that the predictions uttered by the spectre were real oracles, implying distinct and certain foreknow ledge, as the event proved (see. Hales, vol. ii., whc has discussed this subject very judiciously).
Assured of his own death the next day, and that of his sons ; of the ruin of his army and the triumph of his most formidable enemies, whose invasion had tempted him to try this unhallowed expedient— all announced to him by that same authority which had foretold his possession of the kingdom, and whose words had never been falsified—Saul, in a state of dejection which could not promise success to his followers, met the enemy next day in Gilboa, on the extremity of the great plain of Esdraelon ; and having seen the total rout of his army and the slaughter of his three sons, of whom the magnani mous Jonathan was one ; and having in vain solicited death from the hand of his armour-bearer (Doeg the Edomite, the Jews say, A partner be fore of his master's crimes, and now of his punish ment% Saul perished at last by his own hand. So Saul died for his transgression which he com mitted against the word of the Lord, which he kept not, and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to inquire of it ; and inquired not of the Lord : therefore the Lord slew him, and turned the kingdom unto David ' (1 Chron. x. 13, When the Philistines came on the morrow to plunder the slain, they found Saul's body and the bodies of his sons, which, having beheaded them, they fastened to the wall of Bethshan ; but the men of Jabesh-gilead, mindful of their former obli gation to Saul (I Sam. xi.), when they heard of
the indignity, gratefully and heroically went by night and carried them off, and buried them under a tree in Jabesh, and fasted seven days. It is pleasing- to think that even the worst men have left behind them those in whom gratitude and affection are duties. Saul had those who mourned him, as some hand was found to have strewed flowers on the newly-made grave of Nero. From Jabesh the bones of Saul and of his sons were removed by David, and buried in Zelah, in the sepulchre of Kish his father.
There is not in the sacred history, or in any other, a character more melancholy to contemplate than that of Saul. Naturally humble and modest, though of strong passions, he might have adorned a private station. In circumstances which did not expose him to strong temptation, he would pro bably have acted virtuously. But his natural rash ness was controlled neither by a powerful under standing nor a scrupulous conscience ; and the obligations of duty, and the ties of gratitude, always felt by him too slightly, were totally disre garded when ambition, envy, and jealousy had taken possession of his mind. The diabolical nature of these passions is seen with frightful distinctness in Saul, whom their indulgence trans formed into an unnatural and blood-thirsty monster, who constantly exhibited the moral infatuation, so common among those who have abandoned them selves to sin, of thinking that the punishment of one crime may be escaped by the perpetration of another. In him also is seen that moral anomaly or contradiction, which would be incredible did we not so often witness it, of an individual pursuing habitually a course which his better nature pro nounces not only flagitious, but insane (I Sam. xxiv. 16-22). Saul knew that that person should be king whom yet he persisted in seeking to de stroy, and so accelerated his own ruin. For it can hardly be doubted that the distractions and dis affection occasioned by Saul's persecution of David produced that weakness in his government whia encouraged the Philistines to make the invasion in which himself and his sons perished. I gave thee a Icing in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath' (Hos. xii. r). In the prolonged troubles and disastrous termination of this first reign, the Hebrews were vividly shown how vain was their favourite remedy for the mischiefs of foreign inva sion and intestine discord.—R. L.