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.
