And he forsook the tabernacle at Shiloh, the tent where he had dwelt among men,
For centuries after Israel entered the land, the tabernacle stood at Shiloh. This verse records the moment God walked away from a tent He Himself had pitched among people — so why would He leave the home He chose?
The words point back to a remarkable act of kindness before they announce a judgment. God had come down to live in a tent among His people. Every visible sign that tied Him to them was bound up in that one place.
God's repayment follows in the next two sections of the psalm. First He removes the defiled sanctuary. He gives up Shiloh, and the tent He had pitched among men in wonderful loving-kindness. And He gave His strength — "the ark of His strength" (Ps. 132:8) — into captivity among the Philistines. He gave His beauty, or splendour — still the ark, but seen from another side — into the hand of Israel's oppressor. So in every visible sign of relationship, God had departed from Israel.
Israel expected to win their battle because they had the ark. Instead God let the ark go, and one writer explains why.
Israel hoped the Philistines would be defeated, and the Philistines feared the same. The very opposite happened. As a Psalm says, God "forsook His dwelling at Shiloh, the tent where He dwelt among mankind, and delivered His power to captivity, His glory to the hand of the foe" (Ps. 78:60-61). Do you know why that was? God will have reality. If Israel thought that the Ark, which was the external pledge of God's presence, could or would support them in their sinful state, they were badly mistaken.
Eli was the priest at Shiloh. One writer traces the whole disaster back to sin that nobody there dealt with.
Israel — and Eli in particular — failed to judge themselves, and so failed to give glory to God. That is why God had to vindicate His own glory, as we have seen, by delivering it into the enemy's hand. Such are the terrible results of unjudged evil in the house and among the people of God.
The word "forsook" is final. Israel got the ark back from the Philistines, but Shiloh never got it back.
In the words of Psalm 78, "He forsook His dwelling at Shiloh, the tent where He dwelt among mankind." To that tent He never returns. The ark stays at Kiriath-jearim, in the house of Abinadab, all through the days of Samuel and Saul. We find the tabernacle later at Gibeon, but it is empty.
Centuries later God told His people to go and look at the ruin of Shiloh.
The ruins of Shiloh show that Jehovah's holiness never changes. That empty place is powerful proof of God's displeasure when people turn away from Him. "Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel" (Jer. 7:12). Yet the ark stayed there for more than three hundred and fifty years. Every one of those years declares the Lord's great patience with His rebellious people! God will always keep His truth, but He has put it in the care of His people. If they dishonour Him, He will scatter them, and they will lose their place of trust.
The ruin was not the end of the story. What came next rested on God's own grace, not on Israel keeping its side.
Israel's responsibility, even under the mercy declared through Moses, ended when the Philistines captured the ark. There could be no day of atonement, no blood on the mercy-seat. One word now marked everything: Ichabod, "the glory has departed." God had delivered His strength into captivity, His glory into the enemies' hands. Sovereign grace raised up Samuel the prophet, and then David. David did not bring the ark into the tabernacle at all. He brought it to Mount Zion, which in this way became the seat of sovereign grace in power, in contrast with Sinai.
- Gift — God pitched a tent among people at Shiloh in loving-kindness. The privilege came before the loss.
- Cause — evil left unjudged in God's own house forced Him to vindicate His glory by handing it to the enemy.
- Reality — the outward pledge of His presence will not prop up a people whose state contradicts it.
- Finality — He never returned to that tent; the ark stayed away, and the tabernacle at Gibeon stood empty.
- Grace — Israel's failure closed one door, and God's own grace opened another: Samuel, David, and Zion instead of Shiloh.
And gave his strength into captivity, and his glory into the hand of the oppressor;
Psalm 78 retells Israel's whole story as a lesson. Here the story hits bottom: God lets the ark — the sign of His own presence among His people — fall into enemy hands. Why would God hand over His own glory? And what can follow that?
Both phrases in this verse name one object. One writer traces each word back to the ark, and shows what the loss cost and how long it lasted.
He gave His strength — "the ark of His strength" (Ps. 132:8) — into captivity among the Philistines. He gave His beauty (or splendour) into the hand of the oppressor of Israel. That is still the ark, seen from another side. So God, in every visible sign of relationship, had departed from Israel. God might still speak by a prophet, and He did, because that rested on a grace that was sovereign with Him. But the established order of things was at an end. The ark did not return to its place until David's time (1 Chron. 13:3; Ps. 132:6).
(The ESV reads "his glory" where this older version reads "beauty" or "splendour".)
The psalm does not say the Philistines seized the ark; it says God delivered it. A commentator links that act to sin God's people refused to judge in themselves.
It was because Israel — yes, because Eli — failed to give glory to God, that God had to vindicate His own glory, as we have seen: to vindicate it by delivering it into the enemy's hand. … Such are the terrible results of evil left unjudged in the house, and among the people of God.
Israel expected the ark to carry them to victory. One writer explains why it did not.
Israel hoped to defeat the Philistines, and the Philistines feared the same. The very opposite happened. God will have reality. If Israel thought that the ark, which was the outward pledge of God's presence, could or would support them in their sinful state, they were completely wrong. God will be no party to what is not true and real, so He says, "I will let my ark go."
Losing the ark was not losing a piece of furniture. It left the people with no way to approach God at all.
Israel was corrupt in all their ways. They were reckless in their dealings with God, because they had forgotten His majesty and His holiness. They try to make the Lord one with them in their unfaithful condition, as He had been when they were in their original state. They do not come before Him to learn why He had forsaken His people. God will neither acknowledge nor help them. On the contrary, the enemy takes the ark of the covenant, the sign and the seat of His relationship with the people. His throne no longer stands among the people. His tabernacle is empty. Every ordered tie with Him stops. Where can they offer sacrifice? Where can they draw near to the Lord their God?
Handing the ark over was not God losing control of His reputation. Here a writer sees Him gaining two ends at once, and asks whether the church's story has run the same way.
God never allowed the ark to return to Shiloh; it was His judgment on the nation, and on the house of Eli. Has it not been the same with the church of God? The church fell into ruin and decay, because it left its first love. God did not let it return to the unity and power that marked it at the beginning, and He has not let it return since. In allowing the ark to fall into the enemy's hands, God secured His glory in the judgment of His people, and also of their enemies.
The psalm does not end at verse 61. After the collapse God acts, and a commentator names the only ground He acts on.
Sovereign grace is the only resource of God, if He is to bless man. All His dealings, however gracious, fail of their object. He loves His people, but He has no resource for blessing them except His own grace. If He acted on the effect of His dealings, He gives them up; they only turned aside like a deceitful bow. So it always is. But when everything was at its worst, He wakes in His love to His people, because of their misery and His love to them. Then He accomplishes the purpose of His own grace in His own way. He "chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion, which he loved… he chose David his servant."
- Glory named. "His strength" and "His glory" both mean the ark. When it went, every visible sign of God's relationship with Israel went with it.
- Glory surrendered. God Himself handed it over, because evil among His people and in Eli's house went unjudged.
- Glory refused. Carrying the symbol into battle while living in sin could not work — God will have reality, not a charm.
- Glory guarded. Even in enemy hands, God secured His own glory. He judged His people and their enemies alike, and the ark never went back to Shiloh.
- Glory regained. After total ruin God woke in love and chose Judah, Zion and David. Sovereign grace is His only resource for blessing anyone.