City
Shiloh
SHY-loh · Modern Khirbet Seilun / Tel Shiloh, West Bank
Shiloh is a city of the biblical world, known today as Khirbet Seilun / Tel Shiloh, West Bank.
What is known
- The Tabernacle and Ark of the Covenant rested at Shiloh for an extended period before the Ark's capture by the Philistines (1 Samuel 4)
- Excavations — Danish soundings from 1922 and three seasons in 1926, 1929 and 1932, I. Finkelstein for Bar-Ilan University in 1981-84, and Associates for Biblical Research under S. Stripling since 2017 — uncovered Iron Age I storage buildings, more than twenty grain silos and a destruction layer consistent with a violent end to the Israelite settlement, matching Jeremiah's later reference to Shiloh's ruin (Jeremiah 7:12-14)
- I. Finkelstein and S. Stripling read the site very differently, and both say so openly rather than quietly. Finkelstein holds the united monarchy to be a much later literary construct; Associates for Biblical Research states its purpose as demonstrating the historical reliability of the Bible. The site entry for Shiloh sets out what each has actually claimed
- Samuel was raised and served at Shiloh's sanctuary under the priest Eli
- The annual feast at Shiloh is the setting for the abduction of the dancing women by the tribe of Benjamin in Judges 21
History
- Founded
- Occupied from the Middle Bronze Age; became Israel's central worship site early in the settlement period, roughly 12th–11th century BC
- Population
- A modest hill-country town, but functionally the religious capital of the tribal confederation for several generations
- Industry
- Center of pilgrimage and sacrificial worship; agrarian hill-country economy (vineyards, grain)
- Coordinates
- 32.0558° N, 35.2925° E
Scripture references
- Joshua 18:1 — The Tabernacle is set up at Shiloh
- Joshua 18:8-10 — Land allotments cast by lot at Shiloh
- Judges 21:19-23 — The feast of the Lord at Shiloh and the Benjamite abduction
- 1 Samuel 1:3-28 — Hannah prays at Shiloh; Samuel dedicated to the Lord
- 1 Samuel 3:21 — The Lord appears to Samuel at Shiloh
- 1 Samuel 4:3-11 — The Ark is taken from Shiloh to battle and captured
- Psalm 78:60 — God 'abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh'
- Jeremiah 7:12-14 — Jeremiah cites Shiloh's destruction as a warning to Jerusalem
On a modern map
Further reading
Reflect
At Shiloh, Hannah prayed so honestly that Eli mistook her for drunk — how honest are your prayers, really?
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