In Joshua, chapter eighteen, verse one, Israel moves the center of worship from Gilgal to Shiloh. There they set up the tabernacle, the ark of the covenant stays and where God manifested His presence among the people in a certain way. Shiloh was in a lot of Ephraim, the tribe to which Joshua belonged, and it was proper that the tabernacle should be near the residence of the chief governor. The name of this city is the same as that by which Jacob prophesied of the Messiah as in Genesis forty-nine verse ten. Shiloh is two or three miles east of the main road and more than halfway between Jerusalem and Nablus.
The whole congregation assembled at Shiloh, and the main body of the Israelites had diminished by the three tribes, Judah, Ephraim, and Manasseh, into their respective allotments. The country has been, in great measure, subdued, and the removal of the camp to Shiloh. It was twenty or twenty-five miles north of Jerusalem, twelve north of Bethel, and ten south of Shechem, embosomed in a rugged and sentimental glen. This sequestered spot in the heart of the country might have been a recommendation by the dictates of convenience. There, the allotment of the territory could be most conveniently made, north, south, east, and west, to the different tribes.
They set up the tabernacle of the congregation there, by God’s appointment, as is manifest from Deuteronomy twelve, verse five, and Jeremiah seven, verse twelve, respectively. However, it was removed from Gilgal, partly for the honor and convenience of Joshua, that he being of the tribe of Ephraim, and seating himself there, might have the opportunity of consulting with God as oft as he desired and needed. Partly for the convenience of all the tribes, that, being in the heart and center of them, they might freely resort to it from all places. Here the tabernacle continued for above three hundred years until the Philistines captured it during the time of Samuel.