Samuel; but the latter turns from him in anger, and when Saul lays hold of him, his mantle tears.  “Jehovah hath torn the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and given it to one better than thee; and the Truthful One of Israel will not lie nor repent; for He is not a man, that He should repent.”  Yet at Saul’s entreaty that he would at least not refuse to honour him before the people, Samuel takes part in the sacrifice, and even begins it by hewing Agag in pieces before Jehovah.  Then they part, never to see each other again; but Samuel mourns for Saul, that Jehovah had repented of having made him king over Israel.  There is another narrative intimately connected with this one in subject and treatment, thought and expression, namely, that of the witch of Endor.  When Saul, shortly before the battle in which he fell, surveyed the hostile army, he was seized with anxiety and terror.  He inquired of Jehovah, but received no answer, neither by dreams, nor by the ephod, nor by prophets.  In his extremity he was driven into the arms of a black art which he had formerly persecuted and sought to extirpate.  By night and in disguise, with two companions, he sought out a woman at Endor who practiced the raising of the dead, and after reassuring her with regard to the mortal danger connected with the practice of her art, he bade her call up Samuel.  She, on seeing the spirit ascending, at once perceives that the man he had come up to converse with is the king himself; she cries out loud, but allows herself to be reassured, and describes the appearance of the dead person.  Saul does not see him, only hears him speak.  “Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up?  Jehovah doeth to thee as He spake by me:  He rends the kingdom out of thy hand, and gives it to another, because thou obeyedst not the voice of Jehovah, nor executedst His fierce wrath upon Amalek; to-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me, and Jehovah also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hands of the Philistines.”  At these words Saul falls all his length on the ground.  He had eaten nothing all the day before and all night; he is with difficulty induced to take some food:  then he rises up with his men to go and meet his fate (1 Samuel xxviii. 3-25).

Comparing with this original the copy in xiii. 7-15, we are struck, in the first place, with the placing of the rupture so much earlier.  Scarcely is Saul made king when he is deposed, on the spot, at Gilgal.  And for what reason?  Samuel has fixed, in a purely arbitrary fashion, the time he is to wait, and Saul waits, and makes arrangements for departure only when the time has run out, although the need is pressing; and for this he is rejected!  It is clear that Samuel has from the first felt towards him as a legitimate prince feels to a usurper; he has arranged so as to find an occasion to show unmistakably where they both stand.  Strictly speaking he did not find the occasion, Saul having observed the appointed