Go ye unto my place in Shiloh - This argument roused the indignation of the people Jeremiah 26:8-9, Jeremiah 26:11. The ark, Jeremiah shows, had not always been at Jerusalem. The place first chosen, as the center of the nation’s worship, was Shiloh, a town to the north of Bethel, situated in the powerful tribe of Ephraim (Joshua 18:1 note). The ruin of Shiloh is ascribed Psalms 78:58-64 to the idolatry which prevailed in Israel after the death of Joshua; a similar ruin due to similar causes should fall on Jerusalem Jeremiah 7:14. The site of Shiloh is identified with Seilun, the ruins of which are so insignificant as to bear out Jerome’s remark, “At Silo, where once was the tabernacle and ark of the Lord, there can scarcely be pointed out the foundation of an altar.”
At the first - In the first stage, the first period of the existence of the Jewish commonwealth, Shiloh was to the Judges what Jerusalem subsequently was to the kings; and as the fall of Shiloh through the wickedness of Eli’s sons marked the period when the government by Judges was to pass away, and the second stage begin; so the power of the kings perished at the fall of Jerusalem, and left the way clear for the third stage of Jewish polity, government by the scribes.