Shiloh (Bible)

Shiloh (Hebrew: שלה Šīlōh, שלו Šīlô, שילו Šîlô) is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as a city.

Shiloh as a city

The Biblical Period

The site of ancient Shiloh, a city in the Ephraim hill-country and the religious capital of Israel in the time of the judges, is situated north of Bethel, east of the Bethel-Shechem highway, and south of Lebonah in the hill-country of Ephraim (Judg. 21:19). It often identified with the modern area known as Khirbet Seilun.

Shiloh is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as a major assembly place for the people of Israel. It was at Shiloh that the Tabernacle was set up in the time of Joshua, the sanctuary containing the Ark of the Covenant. The ark remained at Shiloh until it was captured by the Philistines during the battlefield at Aphek during the time of the high priest Eli.

At Shiloh, the "whole congregation of Israel assembled...and set up the tabernacle of the congregation" (Joshua 18:1). being the tent built under Moses' direction to house the ark. According to Talmudic sources, the Tabernacle rested at Shiloh for 369 years (Zevachim 118b), although modern scholar believe the period to have been considerably shorter.

At some point during its long stay at Shiloh, the portable tent seems to have been enclosed within a compound or replaced with a standing structure with permanent doors (1 Samuel 3:15), a precursor to the Temple.

Though other important places of worship and government existed during this period, Shiloh was a major religious center. "The people," assembled here for feasts and sacrifices, and here lots were cast under Joshua's guidance for the various tribal areas (Joshua 18:10) and Levitical cities (Joshua 21).

The centrality of Shiloh's altar became bone of contention when the eastern tribes—Reuben, Gadites and Manasseh—built their own worship center near the Jordan River, nearly provoking an inter-tribal war until these tribes agreed that the altar would serve only as a monument and not rival place of sacrifice (Joshua 22:28).

Nevertheless, other sacrificial altars were clearly in evidence during the period, including at Mount Ebal (Joshua 8:30), Ophrah (Judges 6:24), Zorah (Judges 13:20) (Joshua Joshua 24:26), Bethel (Judges 21:4), Ramah (1 Samuel 7:17), Gilgal (1 Samuel 10:8) and others.

When a war between the tribe of Benjamin and other Israelite tribes left the Benjaminites without an adequate number of women, Shiloh's role as a religious center presented a solution. As part of the peace settlement, the leaders of the other tribes gave the Benjaminites permission kidnap wives for themselves from a religious celebration in Shiloh, as the young women came from Shiloh to dance in the vineyards (see Judges 21).

Later, the prophet Samuel was raised at the shrine in Shiloh by the high priest Eli. Meanwhile, Eli's sons Hophni and Phinehas had become corrupt and another prophet predicted that God's blessing would be removed from Eli's lineage.

When the Philistines confronted the Israelites at Aphek, the Israelites brought forth the Ark of the Covenant from Shiloh as their standard. Although this act temporarily through the Philistines into confusion, they were able to rally effective, defeat the Israelites, and carry the Ark of the Covenant off to Philistia. The Ark was soon returned to Israel, but was subsequently kept in Kiryat-Yearim until David had it brought to Jerusalem. It never returned to Shiloh. Some believe that Shiloh itself may have been destroyed by the Philistines, although this is not clear from the record.

During the reign of King Saul, Eli's descendants Ahimelech and Abiathar were to be found at an otherwise unknown place called Nob, where they gave aid to the fugitive David and were infamously attacked by agents of Saul, with only Abiathar surviving the slaughter.

Some of the Shilonite priests came to Jerusalem during the reign of King David, who brought the Ark of the Covenant to his new capital and established an altar there. Abiathar, Eli's great-grandson, served as David's high priest together with Zadok until he made the mistake of backing Adonijah instead of Solomon as David's successor, for which he was banished by Solomon.

Other than Eli, the most famous Shilonite was the prophet Ahijah. After Solomon had sinned by constructing altars in honor of the gods of his Moabite and Ammonite wives near Jerusalem, Ahijah commission Jeroboam I as the future king of Israel, leaving only the territory of Judah to David's descendants. When Solomon died, ten of the tribes seceded, and their religious leaders built local worship sites as alternative pilgrimage destinations to Jerusalem's temple. At this time, Shiloh may have been revived as a holy shrine. In any case was home to Ahijah, who turned against Jeroboam for creating the shrines at Dan and Bethel and predicted his line's demise (1 Kings 14:6-16)

Shiloh virtually disappears from the biblical record after this. However, in the late early sixth century B.C.E., the prophet Jeremiah would refer to Shiloh as a place of desolation, predicting that God would to likewise to Jerusalem if its priests and people did not repent:

Do not trust in deceptive words and say, "This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!" Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, "We are safe"?... Go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for my Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel... What I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears my Name, the temple you trust in, the place I gave to you and your fathers. (Jeremiah 7:4-14)

Nevertheless, Jeremiah also indicates that Shiloh remained prosperous enough a few years later that—along with the important northern cities of Shechem and Samaria—it could send delegates with grain and incense offerings to the Jewish governor Gedaliah during the period of Babylon rule.

The Christian Period

St. Jerome, in his letter to Paula and Eustochius, dated about 392-393, wrote: "With Christ at our side we shall pass through Shiloh and Bethel " (Ep. 46,13, PL 22, 492). However, the official church of Jerusalem did not schedule an annual pilgrimage to Shiloh, unlike Bethel. The only pilgrim other than Jerome that mentions its name —the sixth-century pilgrim Theodosius—wrongly located it mid-way between Jerusalem and Emmaus. This and other mistaken identifications lasted for centuries.

Shiloh assumed messianic attachment among Christians due to the verse (Genesis 49:10): "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be." Shiloh here is believed by some Christians to refer to Jesus as the Messiah.

The Muslim Period

Muslim pilgrims to Shiloh mention a mosque called es-Sekineh where the memory of Jacob's and Joseph's deeds was revered. The earliest source is el-Harawi, who visited the country in 1173 when it was occupied by the Crusaders, wrote: "Seilun (Shiloh) is the village of the mosque es-Sekineh where the stone of the Table is found. Later Muslim writers make similar mentions of the site.

Archaeology

The first archaeological excavations at Tel Shiloh began in the years 1922-1932 by a Danish expedition. The finds were placed in the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen. In 1980, Israel Finkelstein, an archeologist from Bar-Ilan University, initiated four seasons of digs and many finds were revealed including coins, storage jars, and other artifacts. Many are preserved at Bar-Ilan University. In 1981-1982, Zeev Yeivin and Rabbi Yoel Bin-Nun dug out from the bedrock area of the presumed site of the Tabernacle. Ceramics and Egyptian figurines were found.

These and other excavations have shown that the site of Shiloh was already settled as early as the nineteenth centuries B.C.E. (Middle Bronze Age IIA). However, it is not recognizably mentioned in any pre-biblical source. The site has yielded impressive remains from the Caananite and Israelite eras until the eighth century B.C.E. Excavations have also revealed remains from the Roman and Persian, as well as early and late Islamic periods. An impressive earthworks has been located and pottery, animal remains, weapons and other objects have been recovered.

During the summer of 2006, archaeological excavations were carried out adjacent to Shiloh’s tel. A team led by Israel's Civilian Administration Antiquities Unit discovered the mosaic floor of a large Byzantine church which was probably constructed between 380 and 420 C.E. The following year, a dig carried out just south of Tel Shiloh exposed elaborate mosaic floors as well as several Greek inscriptions, one explicitly referring to the site as the "village of Shiloh". A total of three Byzantine basilicas have now been uncovered.

Modern Shiloh

The modern village of Shiloh, viewed from Tel Shiloh

Shiloh resumed its status as a Jewish town in 1978 when a group of Jews affiliated with the Gush Emunim movement returned to the location to assert revenant rights. In 1979 the Israeli government officially authorized Shiloh's status as a recognized village. The population (2006) of the village is approximately 1500 and the community contains educational institutions, grocery, a Hesder yeshiva (combining military service and advanced Talmudic studies), sports fields, a pool and several synagogues, one scale-modeled to the ancient Tabernacle. It is built on disputed territory, claimed by the Palestinian Authority as part of a potential independent state.

See also

• Eben-Ezer
• Song of Moses

External links

• Rabbi Ariel Bar Tzodeck's Insight into Shiloh (a Kabbalist perspective)
• Shiloh in the Jewish Encyclopedia
• photos of the Mosaic from Tel Shiloh
• photos of the Mosaic from Tel Shiloh "Church of the ark found in the west bank"
• Photos of Tel Shiloh

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