When the Dead Speak

She could hear the rumbling of the iron chariots, even at this distance, so when the potter’s long-legged son came running back to the village to report between winded breaths that the Philistine army was camped at Shunem and that they were “as numerous (gasp, gasp) as (gasp) the stars!”  she wasn’t surprised.   The boy may have been prone to the natural exaggeration of youth, but she didn’t doubt that the Philistines were numerous, indeed.  Nor did she doubt the rumblings in the ground.  She’d seen the Philistines in their chariots of iron before.  She had seen them crashing down the countryside, smashing anyone who attempted to stand against them. She knew what those bone jarring vibrations shaking the land meant: they meant death and destruction.

Years ago, the Philistines had been driven out by the army of Israel led by the then newly crowned king of Israel, King Saul.  He immediately conscripted every able bodied man with a sword – and many without swords. They fought with nothing more than the farm implements they carried from home. Untrained and unarmed they might have been but they drove the Philistines out of Israel.  In recent years, however, the Philistines had been encroaching back into their former territories in Israel and King Saul now seemed powerless to stop them. 

The men of her village seemed to think that Saul and his army were gathering near Mt. Gilboa and that a battle between the two forces was immanent.  Many of them were already leaving their fields and taking their pitchforks to join up.  “Israel for Israel,” they shouted.  They hoisted their makeshift weapons into the air and shouted again, “For Israel, King Saul and for God!”

She smiled as she worked; not because she shared their fervor for the defense of the Promised Land but because bloody battles were good for business.  Soon there would be grieving mothers who wanted to speak to their dead sons just once more and wives who wanted to hear one more “I love you,” from missing husbands.  No matter who won the battle - the Philistines with their armored chariots or Saul with his rag-tag conscripts - the families of those who died in the field of battle would come to her.  She was the witch of En-Dor and conjured the dead.

For a fee she could call forth the spirits of the deceased. She could bind them and force them to speak if they proved recalcitrant.  She could charm their secrets from them.  She knew the secrets of necromantic magic.

Necromancy was, of course, outlawed in Israel.  The Torah brought down by Moses from his mountaintop interview with Yahweh had declared that witches and sorcerers should not be suffered to live.  The Law of Moses demanded that necromancers should be put to death by stoning.  However, what the law required and what the people practiced were not always exactly in agreement.  She’d maintained the rites handed down to her by her mother and grandmother and great grandmother, despite the prohibitions of the Torah. 

After his anointing as king over the tribes of Israel by the prophet Samuel, Saul had attempted to bring Israel into compliance with the demands of the Torah by banishing diviners, necromancers, and witches from the land.  And he’d nearly been complete in his efforts.  But with a well placed bribe and the remembrance of conjures of the past, she’d been able to keep her place in En-Dor, though she practiced in secret these days, and always with a suspicious and watchful eye.

The people of En-Dor and its neighboring regions wanted to hear what the dead had to say despite the prohibitions of Moses and Torah.  The dead could describe future events or locate missing treasure.  The dead could give advice to the desperate or comfort the lonely. The dead knew things that the living could not know.  And the people, living people, came to her because she knew the secrets of conjuring up the sprits of the dead.  When the dead speak the living listened; though, as she warned those that came to her, what the dead had to say wasn’t always pleasant or comforting.

She knew the old magic and the old prayers; prayers that were already old when the tower of Babel was left abandoned to collapse untended in the plains of Shinar. She knew conjuring charms that were old even before the world had been wiped clean by the flood that Noah and his family alone survived.  They’d been taught to her by her mother, and her mother had been taught in turn by her mother, and so on back through the years to an obscure past when the Great Mother and her vulture winged attendants had taught them to the first priestesses of settled civilization.

Now she prepared to perform those secret and sacred rites once more.  From a shelf along one of the red-ochre stained walls she gathered a number of clay jars, and placed them on a low wooden table. Each jar was marked with a symbol painted with the same red-ochre that stained the walls.  One jar contained crystallized myrrh, the hardened sap of a tree that grew in the desert peninsula south of Kedar, another held a mixture of powdered spices: cinnamon, clove, coriander, another contained olive oil.  Everything worked better with a little olive oil.  The other jars contained ingredients that were more or less mundane but the last of the jars was unmarked.  It held ingredients without name and passed down in secret through generations of her family. 

In the center of her single room home was a fire pit; dug into the earthen floor.  She removed the iron grate that lay over the pit and arranged an armload of wood for burning. She would need the coals.  With the flames lit and devouring the wood and the rising smoke drifting upward through the hole cut in the ceiling, she replaced the iron grate and went outside.  It would be too hot inside until the sun had set.

The sun had already crossed its zenith in the sky and was descending towards the western horizon.  She had only a few hours before darkness, but that was plenty of time to complete her preparations.  She smiled again thinking of those who would come to her when the battle was over.  Philistia or Israel. It mattered little, to her, who won, except that the Philistines would be more willing to allow her practice.  Dagon, the Philistine god, wasn’t nearly as particular about such things as Yahweh, the deity worshipped by the Hebrews. Dagon laid no prescriptions against divination on his worshippers.

Looking south, toward Mount Gilboa, she considered King Saul and the army rumored to be encamped there.  ‘He’s not much of king, anymore,’ she thought.  Though he started off well enough - routing the Philistines and uniting the often quarreling tribes of Israelites into a cohesive nation - somewhere along the way things began to fall apart for the first king of Israel.  King Saul had lost the approval of the prophet Samuel, and with Samuel, the approval of Yahweh, the god for whom he spoke.   And now, talk among people throughout the country was of one David ben Jesse from the tribe of Judah who would soon replace Saul as king.   His daughter, Michel, had already been given to David in marriage, and his son Jonathan was said to love David at least as much as the women of Israel who sang David’s name in the streets as they danced with their tambourines.  “Saul hath slain his thousands, but David his tens of thousands.”

She finished gathering the necessary materials and returned to her home before nightfall. 

The glowing red coals shimmered beneath the iron grate.  All would be ready when they came.  She was prepared.

***   ***   ***

A pounding on the door woke her.  She lurched, frightened, from the pallet of straw where she slept.  The room was dark except for the still glowing coals.  Another pound on the door rattled the shelves along one wall.

“Yes. Yes.” She called out. “Allow an old woman a moment to gather herself.”

She lit an oil lamp to illuminate the room and shadows flared.  Through the ventilation opening in the ceiling she could see the crescent moon like the curved horns of some celestial bull in the sky.  It was late in the night, but still too early for any of the battlefield victims’ families to have come to her.  The battle wouldn’t be engaged for another several hours, at least.  She was wrapping a scarf around her head when the door was banged again.

“You are impatient” she said as she unfastened the bolt that held the door secured.  She opened the door.  Outside, in the dim light of the waning moon, stood a bearded man, tall and muscular.  A sword was strapped to his waist with an ornamented leather belt.  Yet, despite his size and build, he was shuffling nervously; glancing behind him, looking to see if he’d been followed or observed. She hesitated briefly before inviting him inside.  It was unlikely that this was a trap, but still, witches were sometimes burned in Israel.

She closed the door behind him and refastened the bolt.  “Visitors in the night are often unwelcome,” said the witch. “They bring trouble.”  She lit another lamp and the shadows in the room danced wickedly. The horns of a bull mounted above the door cast long curved shadows like sickles across the room.  The stranger flinched from the light as she held the lamp high to examine him. 

“I mean you no harm,” said the man.

“You may not, “she said before pausing to examine his face.   “You may not intend any harm, but I can see that death follows you, and I’d rather he not come through my door this evening.”  She paused again.  “Your face is familiar, even though you’ve tried to disguise yourself.  And your sword and belt betray your peasant outfit.  Who are you?”

The man quivered where he stood; his knees buckled.  “Please,” he said.  “I need your help. I need you to disclose the future to me.” 

She continued to stare at him. “How do you suppose I could do that?  I am just an old woman.”

“By means of a spirit.  I know that you are the witch of En-Dor.  You can conjure the one I name to you.”

The witch woman lowered her lamp and retreated across the room.  “You must know that King Saul has outlawed divination and banished wizards from the land.  Were I to do this for you I could be killed.  Are you trying to lay a trap for my life?” she hissed.

“I swear,” said man, “I swear by Yahweh, the living God, that nothing will happen to you because of this.”  When she still hesitated, he drew a pouch from his robe and tossed it to her feet.  The coins inside clanked harshly in the silence.  Stooping down, she swept the coin purse off the ground and into a fold of her garments with a startling swiftness.

“All right visitor in the night,” she said. “Whom shall I conjure for you?”

The stranger lowered his eyes and starred at the dirt floor. When he finally whispered his answer it was with the hesitancy produced by guilt and fear.  “I need to speak with the prophet Samuel.”

The light of the smoldering coals and the flickering lamps reflected bright in wide eyes of the witch woman.  “Samuel!” she spat.  “No one would dare call for that departed prophet but King Saul.  You are the king, aren’t you?  Why does the king who drives mediums and wizards out of the land come to the witch of En-Dor in the dark of night, disguised and distressed?   What do you want?”

“Please,” said the ashen faced king.  In the reflected red light of the witch’s room he appeared skeletal and rotted.  “While he was alive, the prophet spoke for the living God, and Israel prospered. And since his death, Yahweh has been silent.  I am desperate now; desperate for his words.  I need help that only the prophet can give me, and only you can contact him.”  The king begged, “Please, conjure up the spirit of Samuel, the prophet.”

After a moment she nodded. “Do not speak,” she said to Saul.  “I will conjure up the spirit of Samuel for you, but you must remain silent.”  Saul sat cross legged on the ground and nodded.  The witch began her rite in silence.

From the jars she’d laid out earlier she drew out various measurements of the aromatic powders and mixed them together in a copper bowl.  From another clay flask she poured out a measure of oil which she used to mark her forehead and the forehead of the king.

“Keep your silence,” she warned him when he opened his mouth. Saul obeyed, but chewed the inside of his lip in frustration.

She held her right hand into the air and flashed a three fingered gesture toward the moon visible through the ventilation opening in the ceiling, then swung her arm down toward the pit and repeated the gesture.  With her left hand she drew out a pinch of the mixed powder at the four cardinal points around the pit.  A second time she made the hand gesture toward the moon and the fire pit and sprinkled the powder into the coals.  For a moment the coals flared up in blue flames. 

A third time she raised her hand toward the moon and flashed the same three fingered gesture.  Then, speaking a low deep voice, she uttered the secret words taught to her by her mother.  She carefully poured out the contents of the unmarked jar over the coals.  Immediately a stench like rotted meat and orchids filled the room as heavy smoke billowed up from the pit.   The thick smoke rolled through the room instead of floating upwards and out the opening in the ceiling.  King Saul rocked backwards, away from the pit, choking on the smoke, but the witch of En-Dor continued her incantation.

These were the words of an old and nearly forgotten language.  She knew them well.  They had been taught to her by her mother, who had learned them from her mother, but tonight they sounded wrong in her ears; they felt wrong as they flew from her lips and tongue.  She paused to breathe and re-center herself.  It was the presence of King Saul that was making her nervous; that was all.  But the words stumbled from her tongue like a crippled dog.  There was no magic in them tonight.  They were empty. Something was growing.

Suddenly the witch woman shrieked and scrambled backwards across the dirt floor.

“What is it?” Saul shouted as he jumped to his feet. “What do you see?”

“I see a spirit rising from the depths of the earth.  He comes from sheol, the realm of the dead.”  This wasn’t right. She hadn’t finished the incantation.  She hadn’t yet called for the spirit but already a spirit appeared.

“Who is it? Is it Samuel?” asked the king; fearful and impatient.

The figure of a man began to take shape in the rolling clouds of foul smelling smoke.  “He is an old man wrapped in a cloak,” said the witch.  She opened her mouth to say more, but just then a voice spoke from the cloud of smoke.

“Why have you disturbed my rest?” said the voice of Samuel, and Saul recognized his voice – that voice that had so often comforted and directed him now terrified him.  Saul flung himself to the ground.

“Samuel, I need your help. I am in danger, great danger. The Philistines have gathered to invade and God has rejected me.  He will not speak to me.  Tell me, Samuel, what should I do?”

The smoke continued to billow up from the coals in the pit.  The oil lamps scattered around the room flickered and snuffed out; their smoldering wicks added more smoke to the already oppressive cloud that filled the room.

“Ever foolish, Saul, you are seeking among the dead for the voice of the living God,” thundered the voice of the prophet from within the smoke. “If he has abandoned you, Saul, what can you do?  If Yahweh has become your enemy, what can I do for you?”

Saul lurched forward on his knees with his hands stretched out into the smoke, “Please, Samuel.  Tell me what I should do.  Advise me, as you did before.”

The spirit shape within the swirling cloud seemed to swell in size.  “There is nothing more to say than has already been said.  Because you disobeyed him, the Lord of heaven has rejected you as king of Israel.  Your kingdom will be given, instead, to David.  And, what is more, tomorrow the Lord will deliver Israel into the hands of the Philistines.  You and your sons will die in the battle.”

Saul wailed and beat his fists against his furrowed brow. “Is there nothing else?  Is there no other way?”

The figure in the cloud was already fading. “Tomorrow, you will be with me.”

The sound of a great wind filled the room and the oppressive smoke rushed out into the night sky, obscuring the moon and stars.  Saul collapsed in a heap upon the floor of the witch’s house, sobbing for all that he’d lost and all that he would lose by the time the sun had reached its next zenith over the battlefield.   The witch woman covered him with a blanket.  She could give him no comfort.  The dead had spoken.