Shiloh

Shiloh

generally understood as denoting the Messiah, "the peaceful one," as the word signifies (Gen. 49:10). The Vulgate Version translates the word, "he who is to be sent," in allusion to the Messiah; the Revised Version, margin, "till he come to Shiloh;" and the LXX., "until that which is his shall come to Shiloh." It is most simple and natural to render the expression, as in the Authorized Version, "till Shiloh come," interpreting it as a proper name (comp. Isa. 9:6). Shiloh, a place of rest, a city of Ephraim, "on the north side of Bethel," from which it is distant 10 miles (Judg. 21:19); the modern Seilun (the Arabic for Shiloh), a "mass of shapeless ruins." Here the tabernacle was set up after the Conquest (Josh. 18:1-10), where it remained during all the period of the judges till the ark fell into the hands of the Philistines. "No spot in Central Palestine could be more secluded than this early sanctuary, nothing more featureless than the landscape around; so featureless, indeed, the landscape and so secluded the spot that from the time of St. Jerome till its re-discovery by Dr. Robinson in 1838 the very site was forgotten and unknown." It is referred to by Jeremiah (7:12, 14; 26:4-9) five hundred years after its destruction.

Shiloh

Canaanite town that became the central sanctuary site of the Israelite confederacy during the period of the judges (12th-11th century BC). After the Israelite conquest of Canaan, the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant were installed in Shiloh until the Ark was captured by the Philistines (c. 1050 BC) in a battle with the Israelites at Ebenezer (site unknown), and Shiloh was soon thereafter destroyed. Excavations at Khirbat Sayun, Jordan, during 1920-32 suggest that Shiloh remained a ruin for several centuries.

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