What is the context?
The passage anticipates pressure to consult mediums and spiritists. Its answer is a pair of questions: should a people not consult their God, and why seek the dead on behalf of the living?
The call to the law and testimony directs the hearers back to God’s instruction. The same concern appears in Deuteronomy 18:9–14, which forbids consulting mediums, spiritists and the dead.
The chapter closes with hunger, anger and cursing of king and God. Looking upward or down to the earth brings no relief, only distress and darkness. These verses describe the grim outcome of turning away from the light of God’s word, before the next chapter’s announcement of light in the darkness.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Henry and Wesley read the appeal to the law and testimony as the answer to seeking guidance from forbidden spiritual sources. Their emphasis is on God’s revealed instruction as the standard by which counsel is tested.
The closing distress gives the warning its urgency. The issue is where people place their confidence when hardship exposes the failure of the guidance they have chosen.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.