Summary

A city in the territory of Ephraim.

Currently identified with the Tel adjacent to Hirbet Seilun (Y. Aharoni).

  • The Tanakh pinpoints Shiloh's location in the context of the grape festival occuring there, describing Shiloh as being north of Beit El, east of the route from Beit El to Shechem and south of Levona (Judges 21, 19).
  • Yehoshua assigned land portions at Shiloh to seven tribes that had not received theirs earlier  (Joshua 2-10). 
  • After Bnei Yisrael regretted their vow not to give their daughters in marriage to men of Binyamin, they wanted to save the tribe of Binyamin from dying out. So they had men of Binyamin come to Shiloh during a festival and take women from among those dancing in the vineyards (Judges 21, 19-23).
  • The Mishkan was located at Shiloh, where Eli and his sons served as Kohanim, and God appeared to Shmuel.(Judges 18, 31; I Samuel 1, 9; I Samuel 3, 20).
  • When Bnei Yisrael encamped at Even HaEzer to fight the Plishtim, they brought the Aron (Ark) from the Mishkan at Shiloh to the battlefield in the hopes that they would be saved, but they suffered a devastating defeat. The Plishtim won, and took the Ark away (I Samuel 4, 11- 5,1).
  • Apparently,  this battle resulted in the destruction of Shiloh and the destruction of the Mishkan there (Jeremiah 26, 6-9; Jeremiah 7, 12).
  • Shiloh was rebuilt during the Monarchic period (Jeremiah 41, 5).
  • The prophet Ahiya HaShiloni prophesied at Shiloh to Yerovam that he would rule over ten tribes (I Kings 11, 29-31).
  • When the wife of Yerovam came to Ahiya at Shiloh, Ahiya cursed Yerovam for making idols (I Kings 14, 4-10).
  • Among the returnees to Zion were men of Shiloh from Yehuda (Nehemiah 11, 5).
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