{"id":"SCHMIDT1925-001","label":"The ’ōb of the woman of En-dor","people_or_site":"Ancient Israel: the woman of En-dor (1 Samuel 28)","country_current":"Israel","historic_region":"En-dor (Ein Dor), Lower Galilee","macroregion":"Near East / Levant","local_name":"’ōb (Hebrew אוב), plural ’ōbōt","source_term":"אוב; 'Schwirrholz', 'Bull-roarer' (Schmidt)","source_language":"German / Biblical Hebrew","object_description":"The ’ōb with which the woman of En-dor called up the dead, read by Hans Schmidt as a whirled blade on a cord.","function_summary":"Raising the dead to question them: the woman of En-dor brought up the prophet Samuel for King Saul. Schmidt heard in the whistling and humming of the ’ōb the voice of the dead.","attestation_type":"historical_text","source_key":"schmidt1925_ob","source_type":"scholarly_article","source_url":"https://archive.org/details/vomaltentestamen0000karl","page_or_plate":"Schmidt 1925 pp. 253-261 (object argument pp. 253-257; sound pp. 257-259; bullroarer pp. 259-261)","map_confidence":"low","plot_status":"candidate_only","coordinate_basis":"En-dor, the story's setting, at the ancient site by Indur below Mount Tabor; a narrative place, not a findspot.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"King Saul had driven the mediums out of the land. Then the Philistines massed at Shunem, and when God would answer him neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets, Saul put on other clothes and went by night to a woman at En-dor who was mistress of an ’ōb. \"Bring me up Samuel,\" he said. She cried out when she saw \"gods ascending out of the earth\": an old man covered with a mantle, who told the king that tomorrow he and his sons would be with him among the dead. The Hebrew ’ōb is usually translated 'familiar spirit' or 'ghost'. In 1925 the Old Testament scholar Hans Schmidt argued that it was a thing in the conjurer's hands, and that the thing was a bullroarer. Isaiah's mediums 'peep' and 'mutter', and he makes ruined Jerusalem speak 'as one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground'. That whistling and whirring, Schmidt wrote, is the sound of the dead.","pull_quote":"Das ist der Ton der Toten.","pull_quote_translation":"That is the sound of the dead.","pull_quote_cite":"Hans Schmidt, 'אוב', in Vom Alten Testament (1925), p. 259","term_gloss":"’ōb (אוב): Hebrew term at the centre of biblical necromancy, rendered 'familiar spirit' in the King James Version; Schmidt read it as the instrument itself. Schwirrholz: German, 'whirring wood', the bullroarer.","cls":"sacred","class_label":"Sacred / spirit","color":"#8A5A2B","is_candidate":true,"flags":["spirit_voice","women_special"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":true,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"Hans Schmidt, 'אוב', in Karl Budde (ed.), Vom Alten Testament: Karl Marti zum 70. Geburtstage gewidmet (Giessen, 1925), pp. 253-261","url":"https://archive.org/details/vomaltentestamen0000karl"},{"citation":"1 Samuel 28:3-25; Isaiah 8:19, 29:4 (King James Version)"}],"source_citations":"Hans Schmidt, 'אוב', in Karl Budde (ed.), Vom Alten Testament: Karl Marti zum 70. Geburtstage gewidmet (Giessen, 1925), pp. 253-261; 1 Samuel 28:3-25; Isaiah 8:19, 29:4 (King James Version)","source_display":"Hans Schmidt, 'אוב', in Karl Budde (ed.), Vom Alten Testament: Karl Marti zum 70. Geburtstage gewidmet (Giessen, 1925), pp. 253-261; 1 Samuel 28:3-25; Isaiah 8:19, 29:4 (King James Version)","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"The ’ōb with which the woman of En-dor called up the dead, read by Hans Schmidt as a whirled blade on a cord.","function_display":"Raising the dead to question them: the woman of En-dor brought up the prophet Samuel for King Saul. Schmidt heard in the whistling and humming of the ’ōb the voice of the dead.","confidence_display":"low","attestation_label":"historical text","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"ancient israel","display_name":"The ’ōb of the woman of En-dor","image":{"full":"assets/objects/SCHMIDT1925-001_rosa_shade_of_samuel.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/SCHMIDT1925-001_rosa_shade_of_samuel_thumb.jpg","alt":"Dark baroque painting: a gaunt half-naked witch raises her arms over a smoking brazier before the white-shrouded ghost of an old man, while an armoured king prostrates himself.","credit":"Salvator Rosa, The Shade of Samuel Appears to Saul (1668), Musée du Louvre; via Wikimedia Commons (Web Gallery of Art)","license":"Public domain","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Salvator_Rosa_-_The_Shade_of_Samuel_Appears_to_Saul_-_WGA20058.jpg","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Salvator Rosa's 1668 painting of the woman of En-dor raising Samuel before Saul.","last_modified":"2026-11-12"},"slug":"schmidt1925-001-ancient-israel-the-woman-of-en-dor-1-samuel-28"}