Even without the confirmation of other abundant evidences to the
same effect, it leaves no doubt as to the existence, among them,
of the fundamental doctrine that man consists of a body and of a
spirit, which last, after the death of the body, continues to
exist as a ghost. At the time of Saul's visit to Endor, Samuel
was dead and buried; but that his spirit would be believed to
continue to exist in Sheol may be concluded from the well-known
passage in the song attributed to Hannah, his mother:--


Jahveh killeth and maketh alive;
He bringeth down to Sheol and bringeth up.
(1 Sam. ii. 6.)


And it is obvious that this Sheol was thought to be a place
underground in which Samuel's spirit had been disturbed by the
necromancer's summons, and in which, after his return thither,
he would be joined by the spirits of Saul and his sons when they
had met with their bodily death on the hill of Gilboa. It is
further to be observed that the spirit, or ghost, of the dead
man presents itself as the image of the man himself--it is the
man, not merely in his ordinary corporeal presentment (even down
to the prophet's mantle) but in his moral and intellectual
characteristics. Samuel, who had begun as Saul's friend and
ended as his bitter enemy, gives it to be understood that he is
annoyed at Saul's presumption in disturbing him; and that, in
Sheol, he is as much the devoted servant of Jahveh and as much
empowered to speak in Jahveh's name as he was during his sojourn