1 Samuel 7:2 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

The ark abode in Kirjath-jearim, and was not carried to Shiloh, its former place, either because that place was destroyed by the Philistines when the ark was taken, as may be gathered from this history, compared with Jeremiah 7:12,14 Jeremiah 26:6,9; or because God would hereby punish the wickedness, either of that particular place of Shiloh, or of the people of Israel, by keeping it in a private and obscure place, and that near to the Philistines, whither the generality of the people neither durst nor could safely come. It was twenty years; he saith not that this twenty years was all the time of the ark's abode there; for it continued there from Eli's time till David's reign, 2 Samuel 6:2, which was forty years, Acts 13:21; but that it was so long there ere the Israelites were sensible of their sin and misery, ere they lamented, &c., as it follows. The house of Israel lamented after the Lord, i.e. they followed after God with lamentation for his departure and so long estrangement from them, and with prayers for his return and favour to them.