Samuel, she cried with a loud voice, saying, “Why hast thou deceived me, for thou art Saul?” And the king said unto her, “Be not afraid, for what sawest thou?”—­“I saw gods ascending out of the earth.”—­“What form is he of?”—­“An old man cometh up, and he is covered with a mantle.”  Saul immediately recognised Samuel, and prostrated himself with his face to the ground before him.  The prophet, as inflexible after death as in his lifetime, had no words of comfort for the God-forsaken man who had troubled his repose.  “The Lord hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand, and given it to thy neighbour, even to David, because thou obeyedst not the voice of the Lord,... and tomorrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me.  The Lord also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hands of the Philistines."*

* 1 Sam. xxviii. 5-25.  There is no reason why this scene should not be historical; it was natural that Saul, like many an ancient general in similar circumstances, should seek to know the future by means of the occult sciences then in vogue.  Some critics think that certain details of the evocation—­as, for instance, the words attributed to Samuel —­are of a later date.

We learn, also, how David, at Ziklag, on hearing the news of the disaster, had broken into weeping, and had composed a lament, full of beauty, known as the “Song of the Bow,” which the people of Judah committed to memory in their childhood.  “Thy glory, O Israel, is slain upon thy high places!  How are the mighty fallen!  Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph!  Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew nor rain upon you, neither fields of offerings:  for there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, not anointed with oil!  From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, the sword of Saul returned not empty.  Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in death they were not divided."*

* 2 Sam. i. 17-27 (R.V.).  This elegy is described as a quotation from Jasher, the “Book of the Upright.”  Many modern writers attribute its authorship to David himself; others reject this view; all agree in regarding it as extremely ancient.  The title, “Song of the Bow,” is based on the possibly corrupt text of ver. 18.

The Philistines occupied in force the plain of Jezreel and the pass which leads from it into the lowlands of Bethshan:  the Israelites abandoned the villages which they had occupied in these districts, and the gap between the Hebrews of the north and those of the centre grew wider.  The remnants of Saul’s army sought shelter on the eastern bank of the Jordan, but found no leader to reorganise them.  The reverse sustained by the Israelitish champion seemed, moreover, to prove the futility of trying to make a stand against