Where is Shiloh?

Approx. 32.0557, 35.2895 · OpenStreetMap · Google Maps

Possible modern locations

Identification	Type	Confidence
Khirbet Seilun	settlement	High

Shiloh in the Bible dictionary

Generally understood as denoting the Messiah, “the peaceful one,” as the word signifies (Gen. 49:10). The Vulgate Version translates the word, “he who is to be sent,” in allusion to the Messiah; the Revised Version, margin, “till he come to Shiloh;” and the LXX., “until that which is his shall come to Shiloh.” It is most simple and natural to render the expression, as in the Authorized Version, “till Shiloh come,” interpreting it as a proper name (comp. Isa. 9:6).

Shiloh, a place of rest, a city of Ephraim, “on the north side of Bethel,” from which it is distant 10 miles (Judg. 21:19); the modern Seilun (the Arabic for Shiloh), a “mass of shapeless ruins.” Here the tabernacle was set up after the Conquest (Josh. 18:1-10), where it remained during all the period of the judges till the ark fell into the hands of the Philistines. “No spot in Central Palestine could be more secluded than this early sanctuary, nothing more featureless than the landscape around; so featureless, indeed, the landscape and so secluded the spot that from the time of St. Jerome till its re-discovery by Dr. Robinson in 1838 the very site was forgotten and unknown.” It is referred to by Jeremiah (7:12, 14; 26:4-9) five hundred years after its destruction.

Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897), public domain. Full dictionary entry →

Verses that mention Shiloh

Genesis 49:10
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.
Joshua 18:1
And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh, and set up the tabernacle of the congregation there. And the land was subdued before them.
Joshua 18:8
And the men arose, and went away: and Joshua charged them that went to describe the land, saying, Go and walk through the land, and describe it, and come again to me, that I may here cast lots for you before the Lord in Shiloh.
Joshua 18:9
And the men went and passed through the land, and described it by cities into seven parts in a book, and came again to Joshua to the host at Shiloh.
Joshua 18:10
And Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the Lord: and there Joshua divided the land unto the children of Israel according to their divisions.
Joshua 19:51
These are the inheritances, which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel, divided for an inheritance by lot in Shiloh before the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. So they made an end of dividing the country.
Joshua 21:2
And they spake unto them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying, The Lord commanded by the hand of Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for our cattle.
Joshua 22:9
And the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh returned, and departed from the children of Israel out of Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan, to go unto the country of Gilead, to the land of their possession, whereof they were possessed, according to the word of the Lord by the hand of Moses.
Joshua 22:12
And when the children of Israel heard of it, the whole congregation of the children of Israel gathered themselves together at Shiloh, to go up to war against them.
Judges 18:31
And they set them up Micah’s graven image, which he made, all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh.

All 37 references