Saul was desperate. The Philistine army had gathered at Shunem in overwhelming numbers, and for the first time in his reign, God refused to answer him—not through prophets, not through dreams, not through any channel at all. The silence was terrifying.
According to Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews, Saul had previously banished every necromancer and fortune-teller from the land. Now he needed one. He disguised himself, stripped off his royal garments, and traveled by night with two trusted servants to the town of Endor, where a woman practiced the forbidden art of summoning the dead.
The woman hesitated. She knew the king's decree—anyone caught practicing necromancy could be executed. But Saul swore an oath that no harm would come to her. So she agreed and called up the spirit he requested: Samuel, the prophet who had anointed Saul king years before.
What appeared shocked even the necromancer. She saw a figure of divine appearance rising from Sheol, venerable and draped in a priestly mantle. She realized at once that her client was the king himself—Samuel had revealed it to her. Saul fell on his face before the ghost of his old mentor.
Samuel's message was brutal. "Why have you disturbed me? God has forsaken you. David is to be king. Tomorrow you and your sons will be with me." There was no comfort, no escape clause, no hope. Just the verdict.
Saul collapsed. He hadn't eaten in over a day, and the prophecy of his death drained whatever strength remained. The woman of Endor—and Josephus pauses to praise her generosity—insisted on feeding him. She was poor, owning nothing but a single calf she had raised by hand. She slaughtered it for the doomed king, a stranger who had criminalized her livelihood. She expected nothing in return. She knew he would be dead by morning.
Josephus then offers something remarkable: a eulogy for Saul. He argues that what made Saul truly courageous was not his fighting but his refusal to flee. He knew the prophecy. He knew he would die. He marched into battle anyway, taking his sons Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchisua with him. They fought until the Philistines overwhelmed them. When Saul's armor-bearer refused to deliver the final blow, an Amalekite bystander drove the sword through at Saul's request. The men of Jabesh-Gilead, remembering how Saul had once saved their city, marched through the night to recover his body and give him a proper burial.