Silo (biblical place)
Silo (Hebrew שילה , Schilo , Schiloh ) is a geographical location of the Old Northern Kingdom of Israel mentioned in the Bible (mainly in the Old Testament ) . It is identified with today's Chirbet Selun , 16 km north of Bet El in the West Bank .
Biblical representation
According to the presentation in the Tanakh, as it is conveyed in the Book of Joshua and also in the Book of Judges , in the first decades after the conquest, long before Jerusalem , Shiloh was the capital and religious center of the Israelites . There stood the first central shrine of the Israelite tribes, the tabernacle with the ark . Their chief guardian was the prophet Samuel .
The town of Shiloh is mentioned for the first time in the book of Joshua. The followers of seven tribes of the Israelites ( Benjamin , Simeon , Zebulun , Issachar , Asher , Naftali , Dan ) gathered here to receive the respective tribal areas from Joshua the son of Nun after the conquest of the land . It was also decided in Shiloh that the Levites should not own any lands, since as a tribe of priests they should live among the other tribes and, because of their destiny as servants of YHWH, they did not need any land.
Many decades after Joshua's death, Eli raised the prophet Samuel in Shiloh. Here he learned from God, according to the Bible, that Eli's sons had to die because of their godlessness, which actually happened in the fight against the Philistines .
One of Eli's descendants was Abiatar , a priest who practiced in Shiloh , whom Solomon disobeyed after Abiatar had entered into an alliance against him with Solomon's rival and half-brother Adonija .
Shortly before Solomon's death, one of his servants, Jeroboam I , decided to become the new ruler of Israel because Solomon had taken many women and, above all, worshiped their gods. When Solomon tried to kill him because of it, Jeroboam had to flee. He met Ahijah , a prophet from Shiloh, who assured him that he would rule ten tribes of Israel, but that Solomon's son Rehoboam would rule the remaining two tribes.
According to the biblical report, Jeroboam also worshiped idols . One day when his son Abijah was sick, he asked his wife to go to Ahijah in Shiloh and pray for him. She, for fear that Ahijah might recognize her, pretended to be, but Ahijah recognized her. He assured her that her son would die because his father had not obeyed God's commandments. On her return to the city of Tirza , what had been announced came true.
There are no other accounts of Shiloh in the Bible, with the exception of prophetic books such as Jeremiah .
history
The place became about 1050 BC. Destroyed by the Philistines .
archeology
Recent excavations have uncovered a large granary at the site of Silo. And the horizon of destruction caused by the Philistines could also be proven.
Naming
Numerous places were named after Silo, mainly by Puritans in the USA, but there in the English-language version Shiloh , when the American West was conquered (see also the TV series The People of Shiloh Ranch ), as well as the newer Jewish settlement Shiloh in the West Bank .
literature
- Israel Finkelstein , Neil A. Silberman : David and Solomon. Archaeologists decipher a myth. CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-54676-5 .
- Silo . In: Brockhaus Konversations-Lexikon 1894–1896, Volume 14, p. 982.
- Detlef Jericke: Silo. In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (Eds.): The Scientific Biblical Lexicon on the Internet (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff.
Web links
- Shiloh . In: Jewish Encyclopedia (English)
Coordinates: 32 ° 3 ′ 20.5 ″ N , 35 ° 17 ′ 22.3 ″ E