Jeremiah 7:12 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

But go ye now to Shiloh Shiloh was the place where, upon the first coming of the Israelites into Canaan, the tabernacle, in which was the ark of God's presence, was set up; and there it continued for a long space of time, even until the days of Samuel. It was during this period that the Israelites, as a punishment of the iniquitous and scandalous lives of the priests and people, received that signal defeat from the Philistines, when the ark of God was taken, as related 1 Samuel 4:10, &c., the pathetic description of which disaster, given by the psalmist, Psalms 78:60-64, has caused it to be generally believed, that an allusion to it was likewise designed here by Jeremiah. “But a due consideration of the context,” Blaney thinks, “will lead us rather to conclude that the prophet refers to a more recent event, the vestiges of which were still fresh to be seen. Shiloh was in the tribe of Ephraim, and this place, once so favoured and sanctified by God's particular residence, had shared the fate of the rest of the kingdom of Israel, and was become a scene of misery and ruin. This they might literally go and see at present; and this, says God, have I done because of the wickedness of my people Israel. In which words Israel, meaning the ten tribes, is acknowledged to have been God's people no less than Judah; and Shiloh, it is observed, had once enjoyed the same privileges, which now belonged to the temple at Jerusalem. But as God spared not Shiloh, but made it the victim of his wrath, so he says he would do to Jerusalem and her temple; and would cast off Judah for their wickedness from being his people, in like manner as he had already cast off their brethren, whom he distinguishes by the name of the children of Ephraim.”