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En-dor - location profile

Location and Setting

En-dor ("Spring of Dor") was located four miles south of Mount Tabor and six miles southeast of Nazareth. En-dor is most closely associated with the Hill of Moreh, which lies two miles to the southwest of the spring.

En-dor was a town assigned to the tribe of Manasseh but was never taken from the Canaanites (Josh 17:11,12).
The town is best known for its famous citizen, the medium of En-dor. Although she was probably a Canaanite, she feared the decree of the Israelite King Saul outlawing necromancy. It seems that her primary activity was to appear to contact the dead to communicate counsel from them to her clients.
The night before he was to face the Philistines in the Battle of Gilboa, Saul sought counsel and encouragement from the departed prophet Samuel, although his wise words to Saul in life had been rejected. From his camp at Jezreel, on the south side of the Hill of Moreh, it was necessary for Saul to circle the hill on its eastern end to arrive at En-dor. With the Philistines camped at Shunem, this would have been a dangerous night journey of nearly ten miles.
The medium’s spontaneous reaction of panic when Samuel appeared and spoke seems to indicate that God had designed this communication from beyond the grave to Saul. (This anomalous contact with the dead was not the work of a medium, but at God’s initiative and for His purpose.) The message was a very solemn one, however, and certainly not what Saul had expected or desired. Samuel predicted the death of Saul and his sons and the defeat of Israel by the Philistines (1 Sam 18:7-25).

Schultz, A. C. "En-Dor," The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible. Ed. Merrill C. Tenney. 5 vols. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1976.