Samuel Is Called Elohim

Saul goes to the medium at Endor, and when Samuel comes up she describes what she sees. The Hebrew is elohim. "I see a god coming up out of the earth."
Notice how strange that should feel: this is "a term used more than 2,000 times for the true God, Yahweh of Israel." So why is the dead Samuel described with it?
Because the word is not a label that uniquely refers to Yahweh. It is how biblical writers described a member of the spiritual realm - and Samuel, now disembodied, qualifies. The wider pattern: other ancient Near Eastern cultures used the same term for the human dead, for any entity "not by nature an inhabitant of the human world."
And there is a second thing in the text. The disembodied Samuel is still Samuel. He speaks, he rebukes, he pronounces judgment. The person did not dissolve.
Scripture links:
- 1 Samuel 28:13 - "I see a god coming up out of the earth."
- 1 Samuel 28:16-19 - "The LORD has turned from you and become your enemy."
- Deuteronomy 32:17 - the shedim, called elohim.
The word marks the realm. Not the rank.