Eli the Priest, the Capture of the Ark and the End of Shiloh

Eli, High Priest and judge, led Israel for forty years. His sons Hophni and Phinehas served at Shiloh and behaved so badly that "people came to despise the offering of the Lord." Eli rebuked them but did not stop them, and an unnamed "man of God" delivered the verdict on his house: both your sons will die on the same day.

The Philistines attacked, and at Even-ha-ezer Israel lost four thousand men. The elders decided to fetch the Ark from Shiloh to save them; Hophni and Phinehas came with it. The camp erupted in a shout that made the earth ring; the terrified Philistines fought desperately. The rout was total: thirty thousand dead, both sons killed, the Ark captured.

Eli, ninety-eight and blind, sat by the gate "trembling for the Ark of God." At the words "and the Ark has been taken" he fell backward, broke his neck and died. His daughter-in-law gave birth that hour and named the child Ichabod — the glory has departed from Israel.

Shiloh never recovered. After 369 years the Tabernacle moved to Nov and then Gibeon, another fifty-seven years until the Temple. The Ark spent seven months among the Philistines — Dagon's statue fell before it, plague struck their cities — then stood twenty years at Kiriath-jearim until David brought it to Jerusalem.