That Mount Sinai should remain sacred after the giving of the Law was to be expected; and we have just now seen that its sacredness could attract Elijah after many centuries. The Israelites, when they left the wilderness, and came to sojourn in the outskirts of Moab, were attracted by the shrine of Baal-Peor; but they were made to feel that this was wrong, and the ambassadors of the western tribes refer to it as a warning when they expostulate with their brethren about the altar called Ed (Joshua xxii. 17). In passing over into Canaan, they carried the Lord’s tabernacle with them; where that rested was holy ground, and it was not intended that any rival site should be tolerated.
The ark of the covenant—the chest which contained the agreement or treaty between Jehovah and his people—was set down at Gilgal, the tabernacle or holy tent was erected over it, and Gilgal became a sacred place. Afterwards, when the hill country had been conquered, the ark and tabernacle were brought to Shiloh, and then Shiloh became a sacred place. Shiloh is now called Seilun, and here the ruins of a modern village occupy a sort of tell or mound. The position of the place is remarkably retired, shut in between high, bare mountains. A deep valley runs behind the town on the north, and in its sides are many rock-cut sepulchres. “The site being so certainly known,” says Conder, “it becomes of interest to speculate as to the exact position of the tabernacle. Below the top of the hill, on the north of the ruins, there is a sort of irregular quadrangle, sloping rather to the west, and perched above terraces made for agricultural purposes. The rock has here been rudely hewn in two parallel scarps for over 400 feet, with a court between, 77 feet wide and sunk 5 feet below the outer surface. Thus there would be sufficient room for the court of the tabernacle in this area. From the Mishna we learn that the lower part of the tabernacle erected at Shiloh was of stone, with a tent above. There are, however, two other places which demand attention as possible sites, one being, perhaps, a synagogue, the other a little building called the ‘Mosque of the Servants of God.’”
According to the Jews, the ark and tabernacle remained at Shiloh three hundred and sixty-nine years—so long that Shiloh was regarded as only second to Jerusalem in sanctity. In the disastrous days of Eli the ark was sent into the battlefield and captured by the Philistines, who carried it to Ashdod, to the temple of Dagon. When Dagon fell down before it they sent it away again, and it was, after some adventures, recovered by the men of Kirjath Jearim. Eventually David brought it to Mount Zion, and then Zion became a sacred place. Solomon said, “the places are holy whereunto the ark of the Lord hath come” (2 Chron. viii. 11), and on that account he brought up the daughter of Pharaoh out of the City of David (which is Zion, 1 Kings viii. 1), unto the house that he had built for her. The ark never went back to Shiloh after Eli sent it away. The tabernacle, however, appears to have remained there for some time, and so Shiloh remained sacred in some degree.
Soon, however, even the tabernacle would appear to have been removed from Shiloh, for although we have no direct mention of its removal, we seem to find it in other places. Samuel, the successor of Eli, judged the people, and on important occasions called the solemn assembly and offered sacrifices. He was accustomed to do this at three different places, which in his day were revered as sacred. One of these was Gilgal, rendered sacred by the first resting of the ark: and although the ark and tabernacle had been removed, and sanctity was to be transferred along with them, yet it is not easy to obliterate the sanctity of a place from the tradition and practice of the people. Another of these three places was Bethel, where Jacob had seen his vision of the ladder with angels ascending and descending, and had been constrained to say, “This is the house of God and the gate of Heaven.” The third place at which Samuel called assemblies and offered sacrifices was not Shiloh, as we might suppose it would be, but one of the many places called Mizpeh. We do not know where this Mizpeh was. Conder is inclined to identify it with Neby Samwil—the Mount of the Prophet Samuel, a conspicuous conical hill, 4 or 5 miles north of Jerusalem; and as Mizpeh means a watch-tower, there is plausibility in this suggestion. We do not know whether the tabernacle was pitched at either of these three places in Samuel’s day: we do not know why Samuel should be content to regard three different places as holy; but it is not altogether impossible that the tabernacle was carried from one meeting-place to another, and made each one holy in turn.
A little later we seem to find the tabernacle nearer to Jerusalem. When David is fleeing from King Saul, and taking the road from Rama in Benjamin to Gath in the land of the Philistines, he comes to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest, and is permitted to eat the shewbread (the holy bread exhibited before the Lord in the sanctuary), and to carry off the sword of Goliath, which had been laid up as a trophy. So here we have the priests, the shewbread, and the tabernacle at Nob. As to the locality of Nob, Dean Stanley follows Mr Thrupp in fixing it on the northern summit of the Mount of Olives, and Mr Thrupp reminds us that David brought the head of Goliath to Jerusalem, before the city itself was captured (1 Sam. xvii. 54). David, in fleeing from Rama to Gath, could hardly find a shorter or more convenient route than that which took him past Jerusalem.
This position for Nob is confirmed by Isaiah’s graphic and detailed description of the advance of the Assyrian invader (Isaiah x. 28):—
He comes to Ai, passes through Migron,
At Michmash deposits his baggage;
They cross the pass, Geba is our night station:
Terrified is Ramah, Gibeah of Saul flees.