I Samuel 15:23: “For rebellion [is as] the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness [is as] iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from [being] king.”
“Lizard’s leg and owler’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble,
Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.” – MacBeth Act 4, Scene 1 Shakespeare
We all know what witchcraft is, do we not? It is a cauldron boiling with all sorts of exotic things used to conjure up a spell on someone. It is messing with the demonic, it is dabbling in supernatural powers. That is at least our Western modern concept of witchcraft. Yet, look at what the prophet Samuel calls witchcraft, it is rebellion. Notice the word is as are in brackets. That means it is not in the original text. Samuel is not saying rebellion is like witchcraft, but that it is witchcraft. Translators cannot accept that so they paraphrase by sticking in the word as, for surely that is what the text meant. Rebellion and witchcraft one and the same? Maybe.
What was this act of rebellion on the part of King Saul? King Saul was getting ready for battle but he would not go to battle until a sacrificed was offered. God wanted the sacrifice to be offered by Samuel. Yet, when it came time to go to battle Samuel was a no show. The soldiers and King Saul were getting pretty antsy waiting for Samuel who was taking his merry time to get there. It was getting so desperate that the soldiers were beginning to rebel and desert. Something had to be done, so Saul took it upon himself to offer the sacrifice and just as he finished old Samuel showed up. Samuel was none too pleased.
Then after a victorious battle, King Saul was specifically instructed to kill all the livestock, which he didn’t do. He held back some to be used for sacrifice. It was after these acts of disobedience that Samuel told Saul that rebellion was the sin of witchcraft. So how was offering a sacrifice before battle and holding back some sheep for a sacrifice to God witchcraft? I don’t believe Saul was trying make a lame excuse for holding back the sheep as a sacrifice like some teenager caught in his misdeeds. King Saul knew he was dealing with a prophet and that he was not about to pull the wool over his eyes. I believe King Saul sincerely held back the sheep for a sacrifice. I believe he thought there was some sort of mystical power in that sacrifice. That is why he would not go to battle until the sacrifice was made and why he held back some sheep. Obedience was not what he had on his mind. Getting the right ritual for victory was his main concern. He held back the sheep because he wanted to have more sacrifices to get more blessings.
You see the word rebellion in the Hebrew in its root form is marrah. We know from the book of Ruth that Naomi wanted to be called Marrah because she was bitter. Yet bitter may not be our best rendering for that word. It comes from an old Akkadian word for anointing and smearing a healing ointment on a wound. It was the idea of rubbing good ointment on the evil wound. A bitter struggle ensures over the good ointment and evil wound. Hopefully the good ointment wins out and the evil wound disappears. This is how the word became a word for bitter. Naomi wanted to be called bitter or marrah because she was trying to rub healing oil in an old wound with her people caused by running off to Moab during times of trouble. By being called Marrah she was admitting to being wrong and would try to right her wrong.
Eventually the word came to mean rebellion as rebellion is a struggle between two forces. Then we find in I Samuel 15:23 that this struggle is witchcraft. Say what? How can a struggle between two forces be witchcraft? Note it says the sin of witchcraft not just witchcraft is rebellion. Is that to say there might be something about witchcraft that is not sinful? Let’s look at this word for witchcraft which is qesem which is a word used for divination, false prophets and an oracle. Now sometimes an oracle was good if it was from God. Qesem comes from a Canaanite word which means to divide or assign among the deities. In other words gods served specific purposes. One god brought rain, another fertility of the crops, another brought the sunshine etc. Each god had an assignment or qesem. Divination comes from the Latin where we get the word deus or divus which means pertaining to gods. In ancient times it was believed that the gods would impart hidden knowledge of future events if they were amendable to it. So Divination has the idea of seeking the gods to gain secret or hidden knowledge. There was nothing wrong with seeking this knowledge from God, I mean Samuel himself used qesem with God. But what is wrong is when marrah (rebellion) creates a struggle between deciding on God Jehovah or other gods. You seek to divide these forces and seek it not only from God but from other gods.
My study partner suggested that maybe there was some power in this sacrifice. Was King Saul that superstitious that he actually believed there was a power in performing a ritual? I have known people who believe there is power in using the Hebrew names of God. That if you are in trouble you get better results using God’s name. If you need mighty help you say El Shaddai (God Almighty) or if you need healing you say Jehovah Rapha’ (God who heals). If that is the case then King Saul was trying to bring about the victory supernaturally through his own efforts of giving a sacrifice and thinking because he performed the right ritual he would be blessed. Some people believe there is power in the Hebrew words and they will listen to Scripture being read in Hebrew or prayers read in Hebrew believing power is being released from those Hebrew words. If the blessing comes, did God plan to give it all the time or was it because of the ritual?
It is sort of like a husband bringing home flowers for his wife and his wife giving him a big kiss. Was it the flowers that brought about the kiss? Well, maybe the fragrance set the mood, the gesture warranted a kiss, but it was the husband’s love represented by the flowers that produced the kiss. If it was just the flowers then she would have kissed the flowers. Therein is the sin of qesem (witchcraft – assignment) assigning the power in the ritual and not in God. This created marrah (rebellion – struggle). King Saul was giving the kiss to the ritual and not to God. His performance of the ritual was to get something he needed not to express his love and devotion to God.
Stop and consider this for a moment, suppose I was to reveal to you a Hebrew word which has the power to produce a financial miracle. Would you honestly always consult God before invoking that word? Would you be giving the kiss to God or the word? If you had that magic word, I mean why do you need God if you can get all you want from that word? I believe that is when you’ve crossed the line into witchcraft, you kiss the ritual or the words and not God.
I wonder, what if there is a power in those rituals, in Hebrew words. Could that be why God wanted King Saul to destroy all the sheep so he doesn’t use them for a sacrifice to get blessings that God did not intend to give him. How important would God be to you in the mix if you discovered a secret Hebrew word that would produce miracles?
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