The whole assembly of the Israelites gathered at Shiloh and set up the tent of meeting there.
Joshua 18:1
As the Israelites conquered Canaan, the promised land, and subsequently divided up the land that they won from the people of the land, one area was set aside for placing the tent of meeting, the tabernacle, where the Israelites would go to worship God by offering sacrifices, as God has commanded his people to do.
The tabernacle remained there more than 300 years – rabbinic Jewish tradition stated in the Talmud holds that it was there for 369 years – and then was subsequently destroyed, likely by the Philistines. Shiloh became a warning against disobedience and the worship of other gods. Here is what the prophet Jeremiah said about Shiloh:
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. While you were doing all these things, declares the LORD, I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen; I called you, but you did not answer. Therefore, 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 ancestors. I will thrust you from my presence, just as I did all your fellow Israelites, the people of Ephraim.
Jeremiah 7:12-15
And also in the Psalms:
He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh,
Psalm 78:60-64
the tent he had set up among humans.
He sent the ark of his might into captivity,
his splendor into the hands of the enemy.
He gave his people over to the sword;
he was furious with his inheritance.
Fire consumed their young men,
and their young women had no wedding songs;
their priests were put to the sword,
and their widows could not weep.
The people of Israel had been unfaithful to God. They had strayed far from him, both in disobedience and sin as well as in the worship of the other gods from the people around them. God, therefore, allowed the people to be destroyed, allowed the place of his worship to be destroyed, and even allowed the ark that carried the memories of his covenant with his people to be destroyed. All of it was gone as a result of the Israelite people’s disobedience.
Yet there is another mention of the word shiloh in the Bible. It isn’t clear, and in fact, it is sometimes not even translated “shiloh” by some translations in the Bible. Here is the reference, from the book of Genesis:
The scepter will not depart from Judah,
Genesis 49:10
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until he to whom it belongs shall come
and the obedience of the nations shall be his.
This is found in the midst of Jacob’s blessing for his sons just before he died. In this verse, the part translated as “he to whom it belongs” is, in the original Hebrew, the word “shiloh”. This could then be translated “until shiloh shall come”, making it, in that context, a Messianic term.
The word shiloh, in this case, is referring to the one who will have the scepter, a royal instrument with which he will rule.
The Messiah will come to rule and reign over both his people as well as the rest of the earth. It says that the obedience of the nations shall be his. This “shiloh” then will rule over the entire earth.
And this “shiloh” will come from the tribe of Judah, exactly as Jesus did through his mother and his father, Joseph and Mary. This “shiloh”, in fact, is a prophecy of the coming Christ, who will come and save his people, ruling over all people of the earth.
