The Ark in the Tent at Shiloh

The Ark in the Tent at Shiloh

After the children of Israel entered Canaan and the war was over, the whole congregation assembled at Shiloh to set up the tent of meeting there (see Joshua 18.1). When Eli the priest was old, his two sons had become base men. They did not know Jehovah, yet they served as priests. Eli could do nothing about it, for he honored his sons above God. And hence a man of God afterwards prophesied this: "And thou shalt behold the affliction of my habitation" (1 Sam. 2.32). This meant that God would depart from the tent.

And the word of Jehovah was precious in those days; there was no frequent vision. And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was laid down in his place (now his eyes had begun to wax dim, so that he could not see), and the lamp of God was not yet gone out, and Samuel was laid down to sleep, in the temple of Jehovah, where the ark of God was; that Jehovah called Samuel. (1 Sam. 3.1-4)

Though the lamp had not yet gone out before the ark in God’s sanctuary, and the outward form of the tent continued as before, the presence of God would nonetheless soon depart. Then too, at that moment, God did not call Eli but instead called Samuel; He did not give His word to Eli but gave it to Samuel instead. Thereafter He laid Eli aside and chose the child Samuel. He established the latter as a prophet in Israel (1 Sam. 3.20).

Not long afterwards the ark was to depart from the tent at Shiloh. It is recorded in 1 Samuel 4 that "when the people were come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, Wherefore hath Jehovah smitten us today before the Philistines? Let us f etch the ark of the covenant of Jehovah out of Shiloh unto us, that it may come among us, and save us out of the hand of our enemies" (v.3). As the people of Israel were engaged in battle with the Philistines, they thought that if only they brought in the ark they could be victorious. And so they removed the ark from the tent of God in Shiloh to their battle camp. When the ark came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout (1 Sam. 4.5). We thus see that in time of trouble the people thought of taking advantage of the ark; but as a consequence, even the ark was taken captive. They supposed that with the ark among them God was bound to help them, for how could He ever forsake it? Yet God did not do what they had expected. He let them be defeated and even allowed the ark to be captured by the enemies (see 1 Sam. 4.10-11).

Oh how very serious is this matter. If anyone should imagine that he will be victorious by vainly repeating such words as "I have God"—"In the name of the Lord"—"God surely is with us"—he commits the same error as the Israelites of old. The nation of Israel was beaten before the Philistines because they forgot to deal with their sins. They did not keep in mind that as long as their sins were left undealt with they would never be victorious. They ignored the fact of their rebellion against God while they dreamed of victory by holding on to the ark. How tragically they were mistaken! Nobody can use the ark in this way.

Let us always remember that spiritual things are not subject to the use of the flesh, neither is the name of Christ ever to be used by the flesh. Should any con template taking advantage of spiritual things or making use of the Lord’s name, he will be totally defeated. Not knowing that the glory of the Lord had already departed, the people of Israel thought of using God’s ark. God, however, permitted His ark to be taken captive. Let us understand that the Lord did not forsake the tent of Shiloh because the ark had been taken captive; rather, the ark was captured because the Lord had first abandoned the tent at Shiloh (cf. Ps. 78.60-61). Once God’s ark left the tent of Shiloh, it never again returned to it.