Shiloh And Its Inglorious End

by G. PRASHER, SR. | Category: God's Centre And Man's Centre | May 1963

Man's history in all ages emerges in parallel patterns. Eras commence with men of godly fear and reverence, only too soon to be followed by departure and declension. In Eden man had a period of bliss, but soon, through satanic wiles, he was drawn away from allegiance to his Maker, thus bringing sin into the world with its accompaniments - tears, sorrow and death!

The Flood wiped out all the antediluvian race, save Noah and his family. These emerged from the ark to a resurrected earth, and Noah sought unto God, worshipping at the altar. From God he received certain basic laws relative to man's conduct, and with God's blessing he was to become "fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth".

Very soon, however, his posterity drifted away from God, worshipping idols, and making great efforts towards federation and consolidation. They would make a name for themselves, lest they should be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth. To this busy scene God came down in judgement, confounding their language, and scattering them abroad, the very thing they had hoped to avoid.

Another start was made in calling Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees. "When he was but one I called him" (Isaiah 51. 2); and God blessed him, and made him many. Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob the twelve tribes. These became a nation. They received God's law, declared their acceptance of the terms of the covenant and were avouched the people of God. Soon thereafter a dwelling for God was erected in the desert, and a cloudy pillar (fire by night) betokened the Deity in residence. Thus a Theocratic State came into existence.

Within two years from leaving Egypt God designed their entrance into the Land, but their unbelief and sin resulted in their wandering in the deserts till forty years were accomplished. After this they crossed the Jordan under the leadership of Joshua, the servant of the LORD. For seven years they waged war in the conquest of the land, and by the time of Joshua 18.1 the Tabernacle, God's dwelling, was erected in Shiloh, in the allotment of Ephraim the son of Joseph, the man whose integrity of heart before God won him the birthright (1 Chronicles 5.2).

Shiloh thus became the place of the NAME, concerning which God had spoken so definitely in the Book of Deuteronomy. Here was God's centre, and to this place all God's people were commanded to come. They were commanded to

"destroy all the places, wherein the nations ... served their gods ... ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and burn their Asherim with fire and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods ; and ye shall destroy their name out of that place. Ye shall not do so unto the Loan your God. But unto the place which the LORD your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put His Name there, even unto His habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come and thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and the heave offering of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herd and of your flock: and there thou shalt do all that I command thee" (Deuteronomy 12.2-14).

In the wilderness the dwelling of God and those of the people were mobile, for as the LORD moved onward the people followed. When the priests sounded an alarm with the silver trumpets the people knew to strike tents and follow according to the divine arrangement. Now the LORD was to rest in His habitation and the nation were to serve at Shiloh. Whether their homes were near this centre or far removed from it, the divine will was expressed, "thither thou shalt come

The divine arrangement that there should be one altar for sacrifice for all Israel was duly impressed on the hearts of the people during their early days in the land. This is manifested in the 9~ tribes preparing to wage war against the tribes for raising an altar by Jordan as they returned to their tents after the war of conquest (Joshua 22.9-20). This action was likened to the iniquity of Peor (Numbers 25), and to the trespass of Achan (Joshua 7). When, however, they learned the altar was for a witness and not for sacrifices, and that the LORD'S law had not been infringed "it pleased them well". "God forbid," said the builders, "that we should rebel against the LORD, and turn away this day from following the LORD, to build an altar for burnt offering, for meal offering, or for sacrifice, besides the altar of the LORD our God that is before His tabernacle" (Joshua 22.29, 30). Would God that Israel had retained this tender conscience in relation to God's centre, the place of the Name ! Had they done so a very different history would be on record.

From the conquest of the land until the death of Eli the priest, some 443 years, Shiloh remained the divine centre. And what is the history of this period of time ? It is after the pattern of those earlier eras. There was a good commencement followed by failure and rebellion, with all the consequent loss which these inevitably bring. The Book of Judges covers in time the most of this period, and early in the Book we have the following sad account from the Spirit of God:

"The people served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the LORD, that He had wrought for Israel ... And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers : and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the work which He had wrought for Israel. And the children of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, and served the Baalim: and they forsook the Loan, the God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the peoples that were round about them, and bowed themselves down unto them : and they provoked the Loan to anger. And they forsook the Loan, and served Baal and the Ashtoreth. And the anger of the Loan was kindled against Israel, and He delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and lie sold them into the hands of their enemies ... Whithersoever they went out, the hand of the LORD was against them for evil, as the Loan had spoken, and as the Loan had sworn unto them: and they were sore distressed. And the LORD raised up judges, which saved them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. And yet they hearkened not" (Judges 2.7-17).

Six times in Judges we read that Israel did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, and each time the LORD brought them into servitude to a foreign nation, and when they cried in their distress the LORD mercifully listened to their cry and raised up deliverers that saved them from their plight . Surely here is evidence of that of which David sang:

"The Loan is gracious, and full of compassion;

Slow to anger, and of great mercy" (Psalm 145.8).

The depth of sin into which many of Israel sank is seen in the two accounts given near the close of the Book. There is Micah with his idols, which the Danites stole, and worshipped all the days the house of God was in Shiloh. Here the Holy Spirit puts the searchlight on idolatry. Then He puts it on acts of violence and immorality, as the treatment given the Levite and his concubine by the men of Gibeah is related. Seeing Benjamin upheld the men of Gibeah in their wickedness, Israel came against them in battle. Israel did well to recoil from the heinous sin in Benjamin, and we may well wonder that they were defeated on the first and second days, with losses of twenty-two thousand and then eighteen thousand men. Doubtless God was dealing in judgement with them, since it appears clearly in the record that they were not quite alive to other sins which went unjudged among themselves. "There was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes."

Samuel, perchance, wrote the Book of Judges, most of Ruth, and part of 1 Samuel. It is really one consecutive story leading from the Judges to the kings of Israel. The idyllic story of Ruth presents heart-touching simplicity and beauty, and Ruth's reward is seen in her sharing the wealth of Boaz, and being brought into the genealogy of the Lord, which fills one with wonder at the grace and wisdom of Him who "giveth not account of any of His matters" (Job 33. 13).

As we reach 1 Samuel we note that there were godly Israelites who in dark and ever darkening days had the fortitude to come to the divine centre, to Shiloh, to worship and serve their God. Elkanah and his family are of those, and we delight to muse on the faith and works of godly Hannah, and the son through whom God was to speak to His erring people. But here we see a side of things that is not so marked in the Book of Judges. We are brought closer to the altar of God and to the ways of the priests whose duty it was to know the claims of the LORD, to give effect to these in their service, and to teach the people what the LORD required.

Alas! at the house of God and among the priests there was sin of deepest dye. The priests repudiated the LORD'S claims. "The sons of Eli were sons of Belial (wicked men); they knew not the LORD." "Wherefore," said God, "kick ye at My sacrifice and at Mine offering, which I have commanded in My habitation ... to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel My people ?" (1 Samuel 2.29). God was relegated to a secondary place,

and this was sad indeed. Further there was also grievous immorality on the part of these men, and God had determined to slay them. The Philistines came to battle and Israel was smitten down before them. Then the Ark of the covenant of the LORD was brought from Shiloh to the field of battle to save Israel from the enemy. But the Ark without God provided no salvation. Thirty thousand footmen fell, the Ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain. Eli, hearing the tidings concerning the Ark, fell backward and his neck brake. Phinehas' wife brought forth a son, and named him Ichabod, saying, The glory is departed from Israel" (1 Samuel 4.21). Thus God finished with Shiloh. It was indeed an inglorious end.

G. PRASHER, SR. | May 1963
God's Centre And Man's Centre