In the ancient world of Josiah and Jeremiah, not much attention was paid anymore to the old city of Shiloh. The folks in Jerusalem, however, did refer to Shiloh occasionally for useful ideological purposes.
Shiloh had come to a sorry end. It had been a city of northern Israel, a seat of considerable priestly authority in the early days. Because an ancient and venerable priesthood had been lodged there, the city no doubt made for itself important theo-political claims. Then, however, Shiloh had disappeared as a force in the public life of Israel. Its influence was terminated in an abrupt way.
The causes for the ending of Shiloh are unclear. The archaeologists have concluded that there was a considerable military dislocation; the ancient ruins were abandoned, never to be rebuilt. Characteristically, the Bible probes in the midst of such destruction, seeking a moral-theological dimension. The termination of Shiloh's public significance is attributed to the powerful working of God. There is only one lyrical expose of Shiloh in the Bible, but it is a full and powerful one:
Yet they tested...rebelled...turned away...acted treacherously...twisted...provoked...God heard and was full of wrath, and utterly rejected Israel, God forsook the temple at Shiloh, the tent of God's own dwelling in Israel, and delivered God's own power to captivity, God's glory to the hand of the foe. God's own people were given over to the sword (Psalm 78:56-62).
There may have been a military assault, but the power behind any such invasion was God's own powerful wrath. That is, Shiloh was destroyed because of its religious failure. The rise and fall of cities and states, so the Bible asserts, has a decisive moral-theological dimension. The city (and its priesthood) was ended because it was incongruous with the reality and purpose of God. God will not be mocked!
This high theological claim in Psalm 78 (as is characteristic of such high moral claims) is not disinterested. It is uttered not by a neutral theological analyst, but by the mouth of a southern, Judean, Davidic, Jerusalem apologist. The other side of the rejection of Shiloh is the ideological legitimacy of the Jerusalem establishment:
God rejected the tent of Joseph, and did not choose the tribe of Ephraim; but God chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which God loves. The Lord built a sanctuary like the high heavens, like the earth, which God has founded forever. God chose David to be a servant, taking him from the sheepfolds (Psalm 78:67-70).
Just as God found Shiloh unworthy and unacceptable, so God found Zion and David a choice place of presence, the place of well-being and life, valued, favored, and blessed of God. Thus the "Shiloh connection" is an instrument of Jerusalem legitimacy and self-congratulations.
THE IDEOLOGY OF SHILOH vs. Jerusalem permits a strong contrast between the rejected "bad guys" and the favored "good guys." Shiloh's bad fortune served to enhance claims of Jerusalem. The ideology of Jerusalem depended upon the complete contrast between the two, which led to the conviction in Jerusalem that what happened there could not possibly happen here, because Jerusalem is a different kind of place, with a different relation to God, given different guarantees, and therefore offered a different future from God.
It was easy to believe that claim while Jerusalem prospered. The problem, as with every such ideology, is that the claim continues to have power and force long after the supporting data have disappeared. It remained for the prophet Jeremiah to critique the self-deceiving ideology of Jerusalem and to summon his contemporaries in Jerusalem to catch up with the sociopolitical, economic, theological realities that had nullified their treasured ideology.
The legitimating ideology of Jerusalem depended on the strong contrast between Shiloh and Jerusalem, between the rejected North and the chosen South. Against that claim of strong contrast, Jeremiah does the hard, dangerous work of arguing the close parallelism of Jerusalem and Shiloh. That is, Jerusalem is not unlike Shiloh, but is in fact very like Shiloh. Jerusalem then could be the object of God's verb "reject" as well as the verb "choose" (see Psalm 78:68, 70).
In two closely related texts, the prophet Jeremiah voices the argument for close parallelism between the two cities:
"Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. And now, because you have done all these things, says the Lord, and when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, therefore I will do to the house which is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your ancestors, as I did to Shiloh" (Jeremiah 7:12-14).
"If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law that I have set before you, and to heed the words of my servants the prophets whom I send to you urgently, though you have not heeded, then I will make this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city a curse for all the nations of the earth" (Jeremiah 26:4-6).
In the second of these texts (Jeremiah 26:7-11), the narrative follow-up indicates that Jeremiah's assertion of close parallelism that violates strong contrast provoked immediate and intense opposition from the powerful purveyors of Jerusalem ideology whose stake in the strong contrast was enormous.
The close parallelism between rejected Shiloh and chosen Jerusalem is noted on two counts. First, Jerusalem is like Shiloh in that it did not listen (Shema'; 7:13, 26:5). Jerusalem refused to heed the whole of the torah tradition signaled in the shema' of Deuteronomy 6:4; refused the claims of torah; refused the commandments of God; ignored the covenantal requirements and possibilities of life from God, with God, and with neighbor. Jerusalem refused to accept the relational quality of its existence. "Not listening" is a sure way to provoke and vex the God of the torah.
The second close parallel between rejected Shiloh and chosen Jerusalem is that because of not listening, the city becomes subject to the terrible judgment of God. In dismissing the ideology of strong contrast, Jeremiah dares to place Jerusalem in jeopardy of the dangerous historical process where it, like Shiloh, is exposed to harsh dismantling.
The ideology of strong contrast has made Jerusalem seem immune to such a historical threat and therefore evoked pride, self-sufficiency, and ultimately gloating about its transcendent position in the world. Jeremiah ends the gloat by his close parallelism and invites his contemporaries to face with candor their actual situation.
I WAS THINKING about the model of "Jerusalem contra Shiloh" -- and the dangerous argument about strong contrast and close parallelism -- when we U.S. citizens watched with astonishment the dismantling of state and party apparatus, the economic habits, and the ideological legitimation of the nations of Eastern Europe. I watched these surprises, not from inside the upheaval of East Berlin or the stunning developments of Prague, but from Atlanta, deeply situated in the United States.
It is easiest to notice how unlike Prague and Budapest we are; we are tempted to an ideology of strong contrast. We have watched while the regimes in those states have been "swept away" as decisively as was Shiloh. Moreover, if we have any theological sensitivity, we can discern that those regimes were swept away because the leadership did not listen.
They did not listen to the cries of human dignity, did not listen to the yearning for human freedom, did not listen to the irreducible, non-negotiable insistence on covenantal honoring that belongs to the very fabric of human reality. It is not overreading to see that these regimes fell, not because of political conspiracy or clever, subversive machinations, but because of the disregard of the most crucial matters of God that belong to our common humanness.
Because we are so unlike these several "Shilohs," gloating has indeed set in among us. We conclude, with self-serving ideology not unlike Jerusalem's self-serving ideology, that the collapse in Eastern Europe happened because they chose the wrong economic structure. We imagine that the collapse was in fact a victory for us and a vindication of our system; moreover, we imagine that their well-being depends on choosing "our" modes of democratic process and free-market economy.
It seems our easiest, least critical response to the dismantling is to stress the strong contrast and to imagine that they should become more like us. Implicit in that ideological judgment is the unvoiced assumption that our way works and that we have nothing to learn from these events. And if our way works, it can claim some holy legitimacy. Thus our ideological response, like that of Psalm 78, is clear and self-serving.
THAT LEAVES FOR US THE puncturing of ideology sounded in Jeremiah 7 and 26. Jeremiah challenged the well-established ideology of Psalm 78 by countering strong contrast with close parallelism. As we most conveniently notice the strong contrast, our prophetic sensitivity invites us to ask if there is a close parallel between our U.S. arrangement of public life and the arrangements now fallen in Eastern Europe.
Anthony Lewis, a New York Times columnist, commenting on the massive changes in fundamental patterns of life in Eastern Europe, observed: "But one great country is not confronting its problems. It is avoiding them, refusing to risk the uncertainty of change. That country is the United States."
We can easily see how unlike Shiloh Jerusalem is, and how unlike the countries of Eastern Europe is our society. We are left to ponder the ways in which we may be like that now-dismantled order. If we work with the simple categories of prophetic faith, we can explore two likenesses that are most troubling.
Prophetic indictment. Jerusalem, like Shiloh, did not listen; we, like Prague and East Berlin, do not listen. In his expose of ideology, Jeremiah specifies Jerusalem's not listening posture concerning violation of the commandments:
Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in My house, which is called by my name, and say, "We are delivered!" -- only to go on doing all these abominations? (Jeremiah 7:9-10)
The appeal of the prophet concerns the most elemental aspects of human relations:
For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will let you dwell in this place (Jeremiah 7:5-7).
The troublesome part of this indictment and summons to change is that life in the land is conditional: "If!" Secure life in the land requires justice to one another, and the end of exploitation of aliens, orphans, and widows. The statement of the prophet permits us to infer that Shiloh was destroyed because it did not have adequate policies and effective infrastructures to care for all the members of the community. The close parallelism in Jerusalem was that for all its royal self-congratulations, Jerusalem had not devised reliable modes of sustaining care for all its citizens. The indictment is astonishing: Beloved Jerusalem is in deep jeopardy because it lacks attentiveness to the marginal.
Our close parallel to Eastern Europe does not at first seem like a parallel. Eastern European states have been short on freedom; we are short on "welfare." The issues, however, are indeed parallel. Both the unfree East and the uncaring United States lack sustainable public structures that address human issues. In our case, not listening to the claims of covenant concerns inadequate health care, inadequate housing, inadequate education, inadequate food and clothing. Not listening evokes diminished and diminishing human relations which finally lead to displacement.
Prophetic sentence. Jerusalem is like Shiloh as it stands under severe threat: "I will cast you out of my sight as I cast out all your kin, all the offspring of Ephraim" (Jeremiah 7:15). The nullification of Shiloh, so Psalm 78 suggests, was by "sword" and "fire" (verses 62-63). It is the same in Jerusalem, "sword, famine, pestilence" (Jeremiah 15:2-4).
Working the analogue, the destruction of the regimes of Eastern Europe has been by massive involvement of human bodies and, everywhere except Romania, peaceably. There is little doubt that the force which toppled the entrenched order was the unleashing of a weighty urge for human dignity and freedom.
SO HOW MIGHT WE CONSTRUE that same prophetic threat at work in our own society? Not, certainly, as a military invasion (a sword), for we are too well defended. Two scenarios might be imagined, either of which could jeopardize our established order.
On the one hand, the pay-back on a brutalizing society like ours might be by the accumulated power of resentment at indignity, until those who have fallen through the "safety nets" rise up and demand attention. It is difficult to imagine such a scenario in our society, because the indignity that might generate such action instead seems to generate debilitating despair in our society. It is difficult to envision such a turn of affairs, moreover, because the victims of our rapacious public policies have few allies among the threatened middle class which might make common cause. And it is undeniable in our society that both those who are at greatest risk and those who are potential middle-class allies in fact embrace the dominant ideology that results in "blaming the victim."
Against such a close parallel, one might conclude that our society is unlike Eastern Europe and that our established order does not share with that established order a common jeopardy. That of course is exactly what Jerusalem had concluded against the Shiloh parallel. Thus, even if our failure in not listening is parallel, the strong contrast makes the danger minimal.
On the other hand, however, we may imagine a second scenario of God's judgment which smacks of more realism. The judgment on a society that does not listen may come, not as sword or famine, or even as protesting masses. The judgment may more likely come as "moth and dry rot" (Hosea 5:12). In the metaphors of Hosea, "moth and dry rot" are juxtaposed to the figure of God as a marauding lion (Hosea 5:14). In the United States, God likely will not act as a lion or as a young lion who tears, but God may indeed come as moth and dry rot, as invaders who eat away, slowly, silently, unnoticed, at the very fabric of our common humanness, until it collapses as an empty shell.
The revolts of Eastern Europe did not happen all at once, but power to destroy the deathly regimes accumulated over a long period of time. So among us perhaps the "dry rot" is the erosion of human fabric, slow and unnoticed, in which health care is less and less available, schools become uncaring jungles, streets become combat zones, "lower-class" addiction reaches into higher-class, seemingly immune places. The advance of our several pathologies is powered by insatiable greed that refuses to take covenantal responsibility, a system in which aliens, orphans, widows, and other marginal persons are useful pawns in political posturing and economic exploitation -- and nothing is noticed.
The visible result of moth and rot would occur only very late, too late to draw the conclusion that the system failed, that we, like Eastern Europe, have chosen badly in fashioning a public order designed not to listen. The close parallel may leave us with haunted reflections about how not listening can indeed lead to death.
Jerusalem is like Shiloh in its indictment of not listening and in its sentence of being "cast off." Note well that there is no "super-naturalism" in this imaginative construal of the future under the rule of God. Jeremiah's rhetoric, given prophetic modes of articulation, in fact is about a collapsed social fabric without the will or cohesion to resolve or to order its own life for well-being. And where a social fabric has a failed will and a collapsed cohesion, some drastic nullification is destined to happen.
In parallel fashion, we need impose no supernaturalism on the crisis of Eastern Europe which concludes that "God destroyed communism." Nor would we for a moment imagine that God would move abruptly against our society.
The outworkings of prophetic indictment and prophetic sentence are much more credible, visible, and realistic than any gross supernaturalism. The destruction comes in identifiable ways. The judgment is wrought through an army, a plague, an epidemic, a pathology. The "God factor" leads not to supernaturalism, but to moral seriousness and the shrewd discernment that matters really are connected in the public process.
The regimes in Prague and Budapest assumed that matters are not connected; then it follows, so it was thought, that one can treat people in any way whatever, no matter how brutally, and still maintain control of power. What is always learned late is that there are not enough guns or police or spies or intimidation to stop the coming intrusion of the lion, or the sneak attack of the moth and dry rot, because the resolve to moral seriousness is finally irresistible.
AS A RESULT, JERUSALEM WATCHES Shiloh and asks: Is there anything to learn? We can stand and watch the ideology of strong contrast in Psalm 78 and feel relieved and vindicated. Or we can attend to the assertion of close parallel in Jeremiah 7 and 26 and see how we ourselves are implicated in and warned by what is going on in another place. One need not imagine our society under threat from sword or fire, or even the massive mobilization of angry bodies. It is enough to let the images into the range of our public reflection.
What emerges is the much resisted awareness that our society is not guaranteed, eternally sanctioned, or immune to risk. We are not invited either by our great power or by God's providence to be impervious. Jerusalem is invited to leave off its gloating, to "go now to my place that was in Shiloh." And we are invited to go to East Berlin, to Prague, to Warsaw, to Budapest. Our going is not in order to exult in the strong contrast but to attend to what may be the close parallel. What if, for all our ideological certitude, our society stands in a common jeopardy, exposed and vulnerable?
The danger is not, as it was not for Jerusalem, a matter of policy. It is rather an act of imagination that invites us to reperceive our true situation. Our true situation, when set in close parallel, is one of profound jeopardy.
The summons, if it is not too late, is to listen. Ideology blocks listening. Listening opens up, staggers, and makes us vulnerable. Listening makes us notice the pained sister and the needy brother. The same listening lets us hear the impatience of the Holy One who accepts a not listening people only for so long.
From the dramatic events of Eastern Europe, it is now clear, however belatedly for us, that listening is the only alternative to a Shiloh-like fate. Asking Jerusalem to listen is a large demand, for listening undercuts all reassuring ideology. Listening, however, is possible as the only chance for life. Not listening creates ominous self-deception, but it does not grant life. Only the God who addresses and summons can give life. It is from that God that the imperative to listen comes, both in Shiloh and in Jerusalem.
Walter Brueggemann was professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, and author of Finally Comes the Poet when this article appeared.
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