Three thousand years ago in Samaria, a woman asked God for a son, and he answered her prayer. Today, on that same ground, people are still praying and getting answers.
Long before Jerusalem became Israel’s capital, Shiloh was the center of worship. Scripture says the tabernacle stood here for nearly 400 years.
Moriyah Shapiro of Shiloh told CBN News, “Our history began here 3,000 years ago when the people of Israel, we came back from Egypt. Egypt is all the way back down (to the west). And we crossed the Sinai Desert. We went all the way around and then entered Israel through Jordan.
Over the years, CBN News has covered major events here and groundbreaking archaeological discoveries.
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Eliana Passentin is the international desk director for the Binyamin Regional Council in Samaria. She explained, “We’re smack in the middle of Samaria. So how do we know this is ancient Shiloh? When an archaeologist comes to an ancient site, they have a dream to find three things: some kind of verse with an explanation; An inscription – it doesn’t have to say Hannah was here, but some kind of inscription; and the preservation of the ancient Hebrew biblical name.”
She added, “And here, we found all three.”
Shapiro says Shilo continues to draw people today for reasons beyond its ancient history.
“I got here when I was one-year old (in) 1978, when this area was completely empty,” she recalled. “My family were part of a group that had a dream to find ancient Shiloh and to build it again. People come from all over the world to pray in the place where Hannah actually prayed.”
Among those visitors are the Flynns and Burnses, who traveled thousands of miles to stand where the book of First Samuel in the Bible unfolded.
It’s where Hannah, barren, mocked, and misunderstood, silently poured out her heart to God, and God answered, giving her a son who would become the prophet Samuel.
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Reprinted with permission from cbn.com. Copyright © 2026 The Christian Broadcasting Network Inc. All rights reserved.
