In 2025, I went to Shiloh to direct a video for Family Research Council. During the shoot, I held a piece of pottery from the hillside in my hand. I couldn't tell you who made it or what they used it for. But I'd been reading about the families who came up to Shiloh to worship, and that broken piece of clay brought to mind something easy to miss in the story. They ate meals here. They brought their children. Year after year, they came to meet with God.
We were in the hills of Ephraim, north of Jerusalem. Long before Solomon built the Temple, Joshua 18:1 tells us that Israel gathered at Shiloh and set up the Tent of Meeting there. The tabernacle Moses had built in the wilderness now had a home in the land God had promised Israel. Here Joshua cast lots before the Lord to assign the remaining tribal inheritances. And here, when a dispute over an altar nearly turned into a war between the tribes, Israel assembled before sending a delegation to hear the other side (Joshua 18–19, 22).
On camera, our guide Naomi Kahn called Shiloh Israel's first capital and gave the traditional Jewish figure of 369 years for the Tabernacle's stay. Scripture gives us the sweep of that history. The Tabernacle was there in Joshua's day, and generations later Israel was still coming to Shiloh in the days of Eli and Samuel.
Family Research Council’s video Journey Through Judea & Samaria: Shiloh will be available soon.
The prayer Hannah brought to Shiloh
During filming, our team spread out to pray in the area believed to have held the Tabernacle while Pastor Gary Hamrick taught. I prayed there too. When I read about Hannah now, I have a hillside in mind.
Hannah had come to Shiloh with her family. She got up after the meal and went to pray. Eli saw her lips moving and assumed she was drunk. What he couldn't hear was the prayer of a woman who had carried her grief for years. Hannah told him, “I have poured out my soul before the LORD” 1 Samuel 1:15 AMP.
What this means: Hannah had carried her grief for years. At Shiloh she stopped holding it in and told God everything, even though Eli misread her and thought she was drunk. "Poured out my soul" means she held nothing back. For this post, Hannah shows that the Tabernacle was a place where ordinary people brought real pain to God. In Temple Prayer we can do the same. Because Jesus opened the way, we can come to the Father with what hurts, and we don't have to tidy it up first.
God answered her prayer with a son. When Samuel was old enough, Hannah brought him back to Shiloh and entrusted him to the Lord. Years later, while the lamp of God was still burning, the Lord called Samuel by name. The boy thought it was Eli calling. It took Eli a while to realize what was happening, but he finally told Samuel how to answer. “Speak, LORD, for Your servant is listening” 1 Samuel 3:9 AMP.
What this means: The young Samuel heard God calling and thought it was Eli. Eli finally realized it was the Lord and taught Samuel to answer, "Speak, LORD, for Your servant is listening." Prayer is not only talking. It also means waiting quietly so God can speak. For this post, Samuel's lesson completes Hannah's: she poured out her heart, and he learned to listen. In the Temple Prayer path, the walk ends in the Most Holy Place, in God's presence, and that's a place to stay still and listen.
Hannah came to Shiloh to pour out her heart. Samuel learned there to listen. I think about both of them when Marie and I teach Temple Prayer. Some days all you can do is tell the Father what hurts. And sometimes, after you've said what you came to say, you need to stay long enough to listen.
What the ground can tell us
Later in the shoot, Naomi showed us pottery scattered across the ground. Jewish tradition says some offerings could be eaten anywhere within sight of Shiloh (Mishnah Zevachim 14:6). That gives me a way to picture the families coming up the hill. First Samuel opens with one of those families making that trip year after year.
The excavations add another layer to the story. Dr. Scott Stripling and the Associates for Biblical Research have reported a large deposit of animal bones, many from sheep, goats, and cattle, as well as vessels they associate with worship. The excavators have drawn attention to the greater share of bones from the right side of the animals and compared it with the priest's portion in Leviticus 7:32. They've also reported objects they identify as altar horns, a ceramic pomegranate, and a large east–west structure they compare with the biblical Tabernacle's proportions. Those are the excavators' interpretations. The precise footprint of the Tabernacle remains a proposal. Hear Stripling describe the excavation findings.
Shiloh also has a darker chapter. Eli's sons treated the Lord's offerings with contempt. When Israel suffered defeat at the hands of the Philistines, the leaders brought the Ark of the Covenant out of Shiloh and into battle, expecting it to secure a victory. The Philistines captured the Ark, and Eli's sons died (1 Samuel 2, 4).
The excavators have reported evidence of a fire they associate with the end of that period. The biblical account tells us who captured the Ark. The connection between that battle and the destruction layer is the excavators' reading. Centuries later, Jeremiah told the people of Jerusalem to look at what had happened to Shiloh. They were trusting in the Temple while ignoring the God who had put His name there (Jeremiah 7:4–14). It's a warning I take personally. You can spend years around the things of God and still need to ask whether you're listening to Him and doing what He says.
From Shiloh to Jesus
One of the turns I didn't expect in the shoot was a conversation about red heifers. Moriah Shapira, who grew up in Shiloh, spoke about the red heifers kept there and why the instructions in Numbers 19 matter to Jewish people who hope to see a Temple again.
I thought of Hebrews 9. The writer brings up the ashes of a heifer and then asks how much more the blood of Christ can “cleanse your conscience from dead works and lifeless observances to serve the ever living God” Hebrews 9:14 AMP. I'd read that passage many times. Hearing someone at Shiloh talk about purification took me back to the question behind it. How does a person draw near to a holy God?
What this means: Under the old covenant, the ashes of a red heifer made people outwardly clean for worship (Num 19; Heb 9:13). Hebrews says that if that worked on the outside, the blood of Jesus does much more. It cleans our conscience on the inside, so we can serve the living God instead of going through empty religious motions. For this post, it answers the question raised at Shiloh: how does a person draw near to a holy God? On the Temple Prayer path, we come by Jesus' blood (the bronze altar) and are cleansed (the laver).
That question runs through the whole story of the Tabernacle. In the wilderness, God told Moses to build a sanctuary so He could dwell among His people (Exodus 25:8). At Shiloh, Israel came to worship at that sanctuary. Then John tells us that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The verb carries the image of pitching a tent (John 1:14). And Hebrews says that Jesus, our High Priest, entered the greater sanctuary by His own blood and secured eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:11–12).
I went to Shiloh to direct a film. The moment I keep coming back to is when our team spread out to pray. I can still read Hannah's prayer here at home in Colorado and do what she did. I can tell God what I've been carrying. And because of Jesus, I can come before the Father with confidence that I'm welcome there (Hebrews 4:14–16).
If you visit ancient Shiloh, take time to read 1 Samuel 1–4 before you go. When you reach the area where the Tabernacle is believed to have stood, stop and pray. And if you're reading this at home, you can start right where you are. Explore the Temple Pattern or start praying with Temple Prayer.
Go deeper: walk through every station with the free Temple Prayer Bible Study on Learn, or read Jesus and the Tabernacle.
Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMP), Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org
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