[7] connects the two, and they are all
alike in their essential characters of media. The wise woman of Endor
was believed by others, and, I have little doubt, believed herself, to
be able to "bring up" whom she would from Sheol, and to be inspired,
whether in virtue of actual possession by the evoked Elohim, or
otherwise, with a knowledge of hidden things, I am unable to see that
Saul's servant took any really different view of Samuel's powers, though
he may have believed that he obtained them by the grace of the higher
Elohim. For when Saul fails to find his father's asses, his servant says
to him--

Behold, there is in this city a man of Elohim, and he is a man
that is held in honour; all that he saith cometh surely to pass;
now let us go thither; peradventure, he can tell us concerning
our journey whereon we go. Then said Saul to his servant, But
behold if we go, what shall we bring the man? for the bread is
spent in our vessels and there is not a present to bring to the
man of Elohim. What have we? And the servant answered Saul again
and said, Behold I have in my hand the fourth part of a shekel
of silver: that will I give to the man of Elohim to tell us our
way. (Beforetime in Israel when a man went to inquire of Elohim,
then he said, Come and let us go to the Seer: for he that is now
called a Prophet was beforetime called a Seer [8])
(1 Sam. ix. 6-10).

In fact, when, shortly afterwards, Saul accidentally meets Samuel, he
says, "Tell me, I pray thee, where the Seer's house is." Samuel answers,
"I am the Seer." Immediately afterwards Samuel informs Saul that the
asses are found, though how he obtained his knowledge of the fact is not
stated. It will be observed that Samuel is not spoken of here as, in
any special sense, a seer or prophet of Jahveh, but as a "man of
Elohim"--that is to say, a seer having access to the "spiritual powers,"
just as the wise woman of Endor might have been said to be a "woman
of Elohim"--and the narrator's or editor's explanatory note seems to
indicate that "Prophet" is merely a name, introduced later than the time
of Samuel, for a superior kind of "Seer," or "man of Elohim." [9]

Another very instructive passage shows that Samuel was not only
considered to be diviner, seer, and prophet in one, but that he was
also, to all intents and purposes, priest of Jahveh--though, according
to his biographer, he was not a member of the tribe of Levi. At th