The list of names is interrupted, and we are now given a detailed account of the death of King Saul. In summing up...
The list of names is interrupted, and we are now given a detailed account of the death of King Saul. In summing up his life and death, the narrator notes that Saul’s defeat resulted from his lack of faith and from his consulting a sorceress.
Generally speaking, this was not Saul’s only lawless act; the Bible recounts many of his unworthy deeds. Nevertheless, the sin of consulting the sorceress is singled out and, more than that, recognized as decisive. The reason must lie not only in the gravity of the sin itself, for Saul did not resort to sorcery in ignorance, but quite deliberately turned to the powers of darkness. Yet because other lawless acts had preceded this one, we may suppose that by this act Saul filled up the measure of his lawlessness and placed the final stroke on his apostasy.
Is it not symbolic that Saul’s apostasy ended in the temple of a pagan god, where his head was put on display? Whoever turns away from God risks falling under the power of paganism—but not as an equal...