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Shiloh

• Today Khirbet Seilun

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Questions

• Where was Shiloh?

History

Shiloh lay at Khirbet Seilun in the hill country of Ephraim, which Judges places north of Bethel, east of the highway from Bethel to Shechem and south of Lebonah. A Danish expedition led by Hans Kjær dug here in 1926–1932, and Israel Finkelstein excavated the site in 1981–1984. In the Middle Bronze Age Shiloh was a walled town with a massive wall and glacis. A dump of offering vessels and animal bones from the Late Bronze Age suggests that a sanctuary stood here before Israel's time.

After the conquest the Israelites gathered at Shiloh and set up the tabernacle of the congregation there, and Joshua cast lots for the remaining tribes. A yearly feast of the LORD was held at Shiloh, when the daughters of Shiloh came out to dance. Elkanah and Hannah came up here to worship, while Eli and his sons were priests; Hannah brought the child Samuel to the house of the LORD, and the LORD revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh. The ark was taken from Shiloh into battle and captured by the Philistines, and Eli died at the news.

Finkelstein found Israelite pillared buildings with storage jars, burnt in a destruction that radiocarbon dates to the second half of the eleventh century BC. Many link it to the Philistine victory, but the Bible does not describe Shiloh's fall. The town lived on as a small place: the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite promised Jeroboam the kingdom, and Jeremiah warned Jerusalem with Shiloh's fate: "go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh".

In Roman and Byzantine times a village stood here. Eusebius places Shiloh twelve miles from Neapolis in the district of Acrabattene and notes that the ark had been kept there until Samuel's time. Jerome, describing Paula's journey of the 380s, writes that a ruined altar was still shown there. Excavations have uncovered Byzantine churches with mosaic floors, one of them probably built between about 380 and 420.

Scripture: Judg 21:19–21; Josh 18:1; Josh 18:8–10; 1 Sam 1:3; 1 Sam 1:24; 1 Sam 3:21; 1 Sam 4:3–4; 1 Sam 4:10–11; 1 Sam 4:18; 1 Kgs 11:29–31; 1 Kgs 14:2; Jer 7:12–14; Jer 26:6

Checked against its sources; not yet read by a historian.

Verses (37)

Gen 49:10

The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.

Josh 18:1

And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh, and set up the tabernacle of the congregation there. And the land was subdued before them.

Josh 18:8

And the men arose, and went away: and Joshua charged them that went to describe the land, saying, Go and walk through the land, and describe it, and come again to me, that I may here cast lots for you before the LORD in Shiloh.

Josh 18:9

And the men went and passed through the land, and described it by cities into seven parts in a book, and came again to Joshua to the host at Shiloh.

Josh 18:10

And Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the LORD: and there Joshua divided the land unto the children of Israel according to their divisions.

Josh 19:51

These are the inheritances, which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel, divided for an inheritance by lot in Shiloh before the LORD, at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. So they made an end of dividing the country.

Josh 21:2

And they spake unto them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying, The LORD commanded by the hand of Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for our cattle.

Josh 22:9

And the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh returned, and departed from the children of Israel out of Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan, to go unto the country of Gilead, to the land of their possession, whereof they were possessed, according to the word of the LORD by the hand of Moses.

Josh 22:12

And when the children of Israel heard of it, the whole congregation of the children of Israel gathered themselves together at Shiloh, to go up to war against them.

Judg 18:31

And they set them up Micah’s graven image, which he made, all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh.

Judg 21:12

And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young virgins, that had known no man by lying with any male: and they brought them unto the camp to Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.

Judg 21:19

Then they said, Behold, there is a feast of the LORD in Shiloh yearly in a place which is on the north side of Beth-el, on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Beth-el to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah.

Judg 21:21

And see, and, behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances, then come ye out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.

1 Sam 1:3

And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the LORD of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the LORD, were there.

1 Sam 1:9

So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk. Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat by a post of the temple of the LORD.

1 Sam 1:24

And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bullocks, and one ephah of flour, and a bottle of wine, and brought him unto the house of the LORD in Shiloh: and the child was young.

1 Sam 2:14

And he struck it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot; all that the fleshhook brought up the priest took for himself. So they did in Shiloh unto all the Israelites that came thither.

1 Sam 3:21

And the LORD appeared again in Shiloh: for the LORD revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the LORD.

1 Sam 4:3

And when the people were come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, Wherefore hath the LORD smitten us to day before the Philistines? Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the LORD out of Shiloh unto us, that, when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies.

1 Sam 4:4

So the people sent to Shiloh, that they might bring from thence the ark of the covenant of the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth between the cherubims: and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.

1 Sam 4:12

And there ran a man of Benjamin out of the army, and came to Shiloh the same day with his clothes rent, and with earth upon his head.

1 Sam 4:13

And when he came, lo, Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside watching: for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city, and told it, all the city cried out.

1 Sam 14:3

And Ahiah, the son of Ahitub, I-chabod’s brother, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the LORD’s priest in Shiloh, wearing an ephod. And the people knew not that Jonathan was gone.

1 Kgs 2:27

So Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being priest unto the LORD; that he might fulfil the word of the LORD, which he spake concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh.

1 Kgs 11:29

And it came to pass at that time when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, that the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him in the way; and he had clad himself with a new garment; and they two were alone in the field:

1 Kgs 12:15

Wherefore the king hearkened not unto the people; for the cause was from the LORD, that he might perform his saying, which the LORD spake by Ahijah the Shilonite unto Jeroboam the son of Nebat.

1 Kgs 14:2

And Jeroboam said to his wife, Arise, I pray thee, and disguise thyself, that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam; and get thee to Shiloh: behold, there is Ahijah the prophet, which told me that I should be king over this people.

1 Kgs 14:4

And Jeroboam’s wife did so, and arose, and went to Shiloh, and came to the house of Ahijah. But Ahijah could not see; for his eyes were set by reason of his age.

1 Kgs 15:29

And it came to pass, when he reigned, that he smote all the house of Jeroboam; he left not to Jeroboam any that breathed, until he had destroyed him, according unto the saying of the LORD, which he spake by his servant Ahijah the Shilonite:

2 Chr 9:29

Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not written in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of Iddo the seer against Jeroboam the son of Nebat?

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Tours through this place

• The conquest of Canaan →
• Samuel and the ark →
• The kingdom divides →