Since wheat harvest comes in the spring of the year, between the time of Passover and the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost, and since the ark had been in the possession of the Philistines for seven months, the battle during which the ark was captured occurred in the fall, about the time of the Feast of Tabernacles. Many may thus have been at Shiloh for the feast and may have assisted in protecting Israel against the invaders. Upon the Philistine victory they would have fled to their own homes among the different tribes (see ch. 4:10).

The people of Beth-shemesh were in the fields reaping their harvest, probably with sickle and rake as in Palestine today. There were no gardens in the town itself. The fields are separated, not by fences, but by small boundary stones or markers. One not familiar with the site could not tell where one field left off and another began.