And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? — Erd-manu, in Lange, argues from this that the incantation of the witch of En-dor had brought about the result, viz., the calling up of the shade of Samuel, and that hence the appearance of the prophet was not due to the command of God. Keil, however, rightly concludes that these words by themselves do not decide the question as to what power called up the “spirit.” They simply assert that Samuel had been disturbed from his rest by Saul, and ask the reason why. In the Babylonian Talmud there is a remarkable comment on these words of the shade of the departed prophet. “Rabbi Elazar said, when he read this Scripture text, ‘Why hast thou disquieted me?’ If Samuel the righteous was afraid of the Judgment (to which he thought he was summoned when thus called up), how much more ought we to be afraid of the Judgment? And whence do we infer that Samuel was afraid? Because it is written, ‘And the woman said unto Saul, I saw mighty ones [or perhaps judges] — Elohim — ascending out of the earth: olim, ascending (a plural form), implies at least two, and one of them was Samuel; who, then, was the other? Samuel went and brought Moses with him, and said unto him, ‘Peradventure I am summoned to Judgment-God forbid! O stand thou by me; lo! there is not a thing which is written in thy Law that I have not fulfilled.” — Treatise Chaggigah, fol. 4, b.
I am sore distressed. — “O, the wild wail of this dark misery! There is a deep pathos and a weird awesomeness in this despairing cry, but there is no confession of sin, no beseeching for mercy — nothing but the overmastering ambition to preserve himself.” — Dr. W. M. Taylor, of New York: “David.”
For the gallant warrior Saul thus to despair was indeed strange, but his gloomy foreboding before the fatal field of Gilboa, where he was to lose his crown and life, were sadly verified by the sequel. Shakespeare thus describes Richard III. heavy and spiritless, with an unknown dread, before the fatal Bosworth field: —
“I have not that alacrity of spirit
Nor cheer of mind that I was went to have.”
King Richard III.
So Macbeth is full of a restless, shapeless terror at Dunsinane before the battle: —
“There is no flying hence, no tarrying here;
I ‘gin to be aweary of the sun.” — Macbeth.
Neither by prophets, nor by dreams. — Why does Saul omit to mention here the silence of the “Urim,” especially mentioned in 1 Samuel 27:6, and which seems also in these days to have been the more usual way of enquiry after the will of the Eternal King; of Israel? The Talmud, treatise Berachoth, xii. 2, gives the probable answer. Saul knew the Urim was no longer in his kingdom. It had been worn by one whom he had foully murdered — Ahimelech, the high priest. Deep shame at the thought of the massacre of Ahimelech, and afterwards of the priests at Nob, stayed him from uttering the word “Urim” before Samuel.
Therefore I have called thee. — The Hebrew word here is a very unusual form, which apparently was used to strengthen the original idea, “I have had thee called “; in other words, “Hence this pressing urgent call to thee from thy rest.”