Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 28:13

"And the king said unto her, Be not afraid: for what seest thou? And the woman said unto Saul, I see a god coming up out of the earth." — 1 Samuel 28:13 (ASV)

( 13 ) I saw gods ascending out of the earth. —The king at once calms the witch’s fears for her life and, impatiently, as it would seem, asks what she saw which called forth the cry of fear and terror.

The word “Gods” here is the rendering of the Hebrew word Elohim. The English Version, however, follows the majority of the Versions on this point. The Chaldee translates the word as “angels.”

Cornelius à Lapide and the best modern scholars, however, reasoning from Saul’s words which immediately follow—“What is his form?”—suppose that Elohim signifies not a plurality of appearances, but one God-like form: something majestic and august.

However, the prevailing understanding in antiquity seems to have favored more than one supernatural form entering the En-dor dwelling on that dreadful night. Besides the testimony of the Versions previously mentioned, a passage in the Babylonian Talmud, treatise Chaggigah (quoted below), speaks of two definite spirit forms—Samuel and another.