Hebrew word · H7888

שִׁילֹנִי

hashiloni

Shilonite

A clan or place name ending in -ī, the ending that means "belonging to". As the word now stands it means "a person of Shiloh", the old shrine town in Ephraim where the tabernacle stood (Joshua 18:1; 1 Samuel 1–4). The same spelling describes the prophet Ahijah "the Shilonite" (1 Kings 11:29).

Appears 6 times in 6 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

Group of shi.loh (שִׁלוֹ "Shiloh" H7887)

§ Shilonite, of Shiloh "place of rest"

an inhabitant of Shiloh

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of 1 Chronicles 9:5

Range of meaning

A clan or place name ending in -ī, the ending that means "belonging to". As the word now stands it means "a person of Shiloh", the old shrine town in Ephraim where the tabernacle stood (Joshua 18:1; 1 Samuel 1–4). The same spelling describes the prophet Ahijah "the Shilonite" (1 Kings 11:29). Without the vowel-letters, though, the consonants שׁלני are the same as "Shelanite", the clan of Shelah son of Judah (Numbers 26:20: "of Shelah, the clan of the Shelanite").

Against the English

KJV, BSB, WEB and YLT follow the received Hebrew and print "Shilonite(s)". A reader naturally connects this with the town of Shiloh. Some modern versions, the NIV among them, print "Shelanites" and treat the received form as a scribal misreading.

How it drifted

This is not a change in what the English word means. The vowels and spelling the Hebrew text received in transmission may have changed the clan into a town. Vowel signs were added centuries after the Chronicler wrote, and Shiloh was the better-known name. Read that way, the clan becomes a group of people from an Ephraimite town.

Used elsewhere in the period

Numbers 26:19–22 and 1 Chronicles 2:3 and 4:21–23 name Judah's three surviving sons: Shelah, Perez and Zerah (see Genesis 38 and 46:12). The parallel list in Nehemiah 11:4–6 gives Perezites and a man descended from "the Shilonite" (הַשִּׁלֹנִי, without the first yod), so the same question comes up there. 1 Chronicles 9:3 puts Ephraimites and Manassites in Jerusalem as a separate group, so people from Shiloh would be odd under Judah's heading.

Similar words

Where it appears

1 Kings · 3

  1. 1 Kings 11:29 הַשִּׁילֹנִ֨י <the> Shilonite

    During that time, the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite met Jeroboam on the road as he was going out of Jerusalem. Now Ahijah had wrapped himself in a new cloak, and the two of them were alone in the open field.

  2. 1 Kings 12:15 הַשִּׁילֹנִ֔י <the> Shilonite

    So the king did not listen to the people, and indeed this turn of events was from the LORD, to fulfill the word He had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite.

    Here: From Shiloh, the old northern sanctuary where the ark once stood and whose priestly line Solomon had pushed aside (2:26–27). A prophet from there speaks against Solomon's house.

  3. 1 Kings 15:29 הַשִּׁילֹנִֽי׃ <the> Shilonite

    As soon as Baasha became king, he struck down the entire household of Jeroboam. He did not leave to Jeroboam anyone who breathed, but destroyed them all according to the word that the LORD had spoken through His servant Ahijah the Shilonite,

1 Chronicles · 1

  1. 1 Chronicles 9:5 הַשִּׁ֣ילוֹנִ֔י the Shilonite[s]

    From the Shilonites: Asaiah the firstborn and his sons.

    Here: A clan name, singular with "the" but meaning the whole clan ("the Shilonite" = the Shilonites). As the Hebrew is spelled and voweled now, it means "person from Shiloh". In a list of Judah's clans it most likely stood for "the Shelanite": the descendants of Shelah, Judah's third son.

2 Chronicles · 2

  1. 2 Chronicles 9:29 הַשִּֽׁילוֹנִ֗י the Shilonite

    As for the rest of the acts of Solomon, from beginning to end, are they not written in the Records of Nathan the Prophet, in the Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the Visions of Iddo the Seer concerning Jeroboam son of Nebat?

  2. 2 Chronicles 10:15 הַשִּֽׁלוֹנִ֔י the Shilonite

    So the king did not listen to the people, and indeed this turn of events was from God, in order that the LORD might fulfill the word that He had spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.

    Here: From Shiloh, the old tribal sanctuary in Ephraim where the ark once stood before Jerusalem. A prophet from the northern heartland announces the northern kingdom.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.