The Skeptics Annotated Bible (282 page)

12 And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice: and the woman spake to Saul, saying, Why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul.

13 And the king said unto her, Be not afraid: for what sawest thou? And the woman said unto Saul,
I saw gods ascending out of the earth.

(28.13)
“I saw gods ascending out of the earth.”
Saul’s witch sees gods coming out of the earth.
9 How many gods are there?

14 And he said unto her, What form is he of? And she said,
An old man cometh up
; and he is covered with a mantle.
And Saul perceived that it was Samuel
, and he stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself.

(28.14)
“An old man cometh up … And Saul perceived that it was Samuel.”

15
And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up?
And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do.

(28.15)
“And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up?”

16 Then said Samuel, Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the LORD is departed from thee, and is become thine enemy?

17 And the LORD hath done to him, as he spake by me: for the LORD hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand, and given it to thy neighbour, even to David:

18
Because thou obeyedst not the voice of the LORD, nor executedst his fierce wrath upon Amalek, therefore hath the LORD done this thing unto thee this day.

(28.18)
“Because thou obeyedst not the voice of the LORD, nor executedst his fierce wrath upon Amalek, therefore hath the LORD done this thing unto thee this day.”

19 Moreover
the LORD will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines: and to morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me:
the LORD also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines.

(28.19)
“The LORD will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines: and to morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me.”
God sent a message to Saul (through a dead man brought back to life by a witch) that tomorrow God would make sure that the Philistines kill him and his sons along with the Israelite soldiers (to punish Saul for not killing all the Amalekites like God told him to in 1 Samuel 15.3).

20 Then Saul fell straightway all along on the earth, and was sore afraid, because of the words of Samuel: and there was no strength in him; for he had eaten no bread all the day, nor all the night.

21 And the woman came unto Saul, and saw that he was sore troubled, and said unto him, Behold, thine handmaid hath obeyed thy voice, and I have put my life in my hand, and have hearkened unto thy words which thou spakest unto me.

22 Now therefore, I pray thee, hearken thou also unto the voice of thine handmaid, and let me set a morsel of bread before thee; and eat, that thou mayest have strength, when thou goest on thy way.

23 But he refused, and said, I will not eat. But his servants, together with the woman, compelled him; and he hearkened unto their voice. So he arose from the earth, and sat upon the bed.

24 And the woman had a fat calf in the house; and she hasted, and killed it, and took flour, and kneaded it, and did bake unleavened bread thereof:

25 And she brought it before Saul, and before his servants; and they did eat. Then they rose up, and went away that night.

29
Now the Philistines gathered together all their armies to Aphek: and the Israelites pitched by a fountain which is in Jezreel.

2 And the lords of the Philistines passed on by hundreds, and by thousands: but David and his men passed on in the rereward with Achish.

3 Then said the princes of the Philistines, What do these Hebrews here? And Achish said unto the princes of the Philistines, Is not this David, the servant of Saul the king of Israel, which hath been with me these days, or these years, and I have found no fault in him since he fell unto me unto this day?

4 And the princes of the Philistines were wroth with him; and the princes of the Philistines said unto him, Make this fellow return, that he may go again to his place which thou hast appointed him, and let him not go down with us to battle, lest in the battle he be an adversary to us: for wherewith should he reconcile himself unto his master? should it not be with the heads of these men?

5 Is not this David, of whom they sang one to another in dances, saying,
Saul slew his thousands, and David his ten thousands
?

(29.5)
“Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.”
The Philistine leaders didn’t trust David, even though David had committed many genocides for them. They had heard about how the Israelite dancing girls used to sing about David’s killings, singing, “Saul has killed his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.” So they worried that David could not be trusted to kill his own people. But they were wrong about that. David was always willing to kill anyone at anytime for any reason whatsoever. That’s why God loved him so much.

6 Then Achish called David, and said unto him, Surely, as the LORD liveth, thou hast been upright, and thy going out and thy coming in with me in the host is good in my sight: for I have not found evil in thee since the day of thy coming unto me unto this day: nevertheless the lords favour thee not.

7 Wherefore now return, and go in peace, that thou displease not the lords of the Philistines.

8 And
David said unto Achish, But what have I done?
and what hast thou found in thy servant so long as I have been with thee unto this day,
that I may not go fight against the enemies of my lord the king?

(29.8)
“David said unto Achish, But what have I done … that I may not go fight against the enemies of my lord the king?”
David was disappointed. He wanted to go kill Israelites with the Philistines.

9 And Achish answered and said to David, I know that thou art good in my sight, as an angel of God: notwithstanding the princes of the Philistines have said, He shall not go up with us to the battle.

10 Wherefore now rise up early in the morning with thy master’s servants that are come with thee: and as soon as ye be up early in the morning, and have light, depart.

11 So David and his men rose up early to depart in the morning, to return into the land of the Philistines. And the Philistines went up to Jezreel.

30
And it came to pass, when David and his men were come to Ziklag on the third day, that
the Amalekites had invaded the south
, and Ziklag, and smitten Ziklag, and burned it with fire;

(30.1)
“The Amalekites had invaded the south.”
The Amalekites are a tough tribe. Twice they were “utterly destroyed” first by Saul (1 Sam.15.7-8) and then by David (1 Sam.27.9-11). Yet here they are, just a few years later, fighting the Philistines.

2 And had taken the women captives, that were therein: they
slew not any, either great or small, but carried them away
, and went on their way.

(30.1-2)
“The Amalekites … slew not any, either great or small, but carried them away.”
Believers like to say that the Amalekites were so evil that God had to kill them all, even their women and children. Yet here the Amalekites behave far better than the Israelites by not killing their captives. (Compare these verses with God’s command to Saul in 1 Sam.15.3.)

3 So David and his men came to the city, and, behold, it was burned with fire; and their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, were taken captives.

4 Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept, until they had no more power to weep.

5 And David’s two wives were taken captives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite.

6 And
David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him
, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God.