294 THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY vill 



adversary ? And Jahveh hath wrought for himself, as he spake 

 by me, and Jahveh hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand and 

 given it to thy neighbour, even to David. Because thou 

 obeyedst not the voice of Jahveh and didst not execute his 

 fierce wrath upon Amalek, therefore hath Jahveh done this 

 thing unto thee this day. Moreover, Jahveh will deliver Israel 

 also with thee into the hands of the Philistines : and to-morrow 

 shalt thou and thy sons be with me : Jahveh shall deliver the 

 host of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines. Then Saul 

 fell straightway his full length upon the earth and was sore 

 afraid because of the words of Samuel . . . (v. 14-20). 



The statement that Saul " perceived " that it 

 was Samuel is not to be taken to imply that, even 

 now, Saul actually saw the shade of the prophet, 

 but only that the woman's allusion to the pro- 

 phetic mantle and to the aged appearance of 

 the spectre convinced him that it was Samuel. 

 Reuss l in fact translates the passage " Alors Saul 

 reconnut que c'etait Samuel." Nor does the 

 dialogue between Saul and Samuel necessarily, or 

 probably, signify that Samuel spoke otherwise 

 than by the voice of the wise woman. The Sept- 

 tiagint does not hesitate to call her eyyao-rpi/jivOos, 

 that is to say, a ventriloquist, implying that it 

 was she who spoke and this view of the matter 



1 I need hardly say that I depend upon authoritative Biblical 

 critics, whenever a question of interpretation of the text 

 arises. As Reuss appears to me to be one of the most learned, 

 acute, and fair-minded of those whose works I have studied, I 

 have made most use of the commentary and dissertations in his 

 splendid French edition of the Bible. But I have also had 

 recourse to the works of Dillman, Kalisch, Kuenen, Thenius, 

 Tuch, and others, in cases in which another opinion seemed 

 desirable. 



