1 Samuel 1:3

yearly The Law required every male to present himself "before Jehovah" at the central sanctuary of the nation at each of the three great Feasts (Exodus 34:23; Deuteronomy 16:16), but there is no evidence that this command was ever strictly observed, and Elkanah's practice was probably that of a pious Israelite of the time. "All his household" (1 Samuel 1:21) went with him, in obedience to the injunctions of Deuteronomy 12:10-12. To which of the Feasts he went up must remain a matter of conjecture. Our Lord's parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover (Luke 2:41).

theLord of hosts See Note I. p. 235, for a discussion of the meaning of this title.

in Shiloh The position of Shiloh is defined with remarkable exactness in Judges 21:19. It was in Ephraim, "on the north side of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah." This agrees perfectly with the situation of the modern Seilûn, which is about ten miles north of Bethel, and east of the main road. It is thus described by Lieut. Conder (Tent Work in Palestine, I. 82): "The ruins of a modern village occupy a sort of tell or mound. On the east and north the site is shut in by bare and lofty hills of grey limestone, dotted over with a few fig trees; on the south the plateau looks down on the plain just crossed. A deep valley runs behind the town on the north. Below the top of the hill there is a sort of irregular quadrangle. 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."

Here in the territory of the most powerful tribe, in the heart of the promised land, the whole congregation of Israel met and set up the Tabernacle of the congregation, the last relic of their wanderings in the desert (Joshua 18:1). The name is appropriate. Shiloh signifies "Rest." Shiloh continued (with temporary exceptions, see e.g. Judges 20:27) to be the religious centre of the nation, "the place which Jehovah had chosen to put his name there," until after the loss of the Ark in the disastrous battle of Ebenezer. Possibly it was destroyed or occupied by the Philistines: at any rate it ceased to be the national sanctuary. Samuel sacrificed at Mizpeh, at Ramah, at Gilgal, never, so far as we read, at Shiloh. The tabernacle was removed to Nob (1 Samuel 21), and the once holy place was utterly desecrated. Jeremiah points to its desolation as the standing witness of God's judgments. "Go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel" (Jeremiah 7:12).

And the two sons Better, And Eli's two sons Hophni and Phinehas were there priests to Jehovah. They are mentioned rather than their father because in his old age he had resigned the active duties of his office to them. The name Hophni occurs nowhere else in the O. T.: for Phinehas it was reserved to sully the honour of one of the most illustrious names in Israel, borne by him whose bold act of judgment "was counted unto him for righteousness" (Psalms 106:30-31).