Shiloh

So Solomon banished Abiathar from the priesthood of the LORD and thus fulfilled the word that the LORD had spoken at Shiloh against the house of Eli.

¹ At that time Abijah son of Jeroboam became ill,

² and Jeroboam said to his wife, “Now get up, disguise yourself so they will not recognize you as my wife, and go to Shiloh. For Ahijah the prophet is there; it was he who spoke about my kingship over this people.

³ Take with you ten loaves of bread, some cakes, and a jar of honey, and go to him. He will tell you what will become of the boy.”

⁴ Jeroboam’s wife did as instructed; she arose and went to Shiloh and arrived at Ahijah’s house. Now Ahijah could not see, for his eyes were dim because of his age.

Year after year Elkanah would go up from his city to worship and sacrifice to the LORD of Hosts at Shiloh, where Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests to the LORD.

So after they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli the priest was sitting on a chair by the doorpost of the temple of the LORD.

Once she had weaned him, Hannah took the boy with her, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine. Though the boy was still young, she brought him to the house of the LORD at Shiloh.

¹² Now the sons of Eli were wicked men; they had no regard for the LORD

¹³ or for the custom of the priests with the people. When any man offered a sacrifice, the servant of the priest would come with a three-pronged meat fork while the meat was boiling

¹⁴ and plunge it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or cooking pot. And the priest would claim for himself whatever the meat fork brought up. This is how they treated all the Israelites who came to Shiloh.

And the LORD continued to appear at Shiloh, because there He revealed Himself to Samuel by His word.

³ When the troops returned to the camp, the elders of Israel asked, “Why has the LORD brought defeat on us before the Philistines today? Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the LORD from Shiloh, so that it may go with us to save us from the hand of our enemies.”

⁴ So the people sent men to Shiloh, and they brought back the ark of the covenant of the LORD of Hosts, who sits enthroned between the cherubim. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.

That same day a Benjamite ran from the battle line all the way to Shiloh, with his clothes torn and dirt on his head.

² Meanwhile, Saul was staying under the pomegranate tree in Migron on the outskirts of Gibeah. And the troops who were with him numbered about six hundred men,

³ including Ahijah, who was wearing an ephod. He was the son of Ichabod’s brother Ahitub son of Phinehas, the son of Eli the priest of the LORD in Shiloh. But the troops did not know that Jonathan had left.