Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 41:5

"that there came men from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even fourscore men, having their beards shaven and their clothes rent, and having cut themselves, with meal-offerings and frankincense in their hand, to bring them to the house of Jehovah." — Jeremiah 41:5 (ASV)

There came certain from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria. —The Septuagint gives Salem instead of Shiloh, and this agrees better with the order of the names, Salem being a tower or fortress near Shechem (Genesis 33:18), while Shiloh was farther away. The eighty travellers were coming apparently on a pilgrimage of mourning to the ruins of the Temple, perhaps to keep the Feast of Tabernacles in the hope of finding at least an altar there on which they might present their oblations. Mizpah lay directly on their road from all three places.

It is significant that they bring with them not burnt offerings but the mincha, or meat offering, the cakes of flour with incense. The outward signs of mourning were, perhaps, connected either with the approaching Day of Atonement, which fell in the seventh month; or with some special fast day belonging to the same season (Zechariah 7:5); or as a sign of their sorrow for the destruction of the Temple. In the signs themselves we note a relapse into a half-heathen custom which the Law had forbidden (Leviticus 19:27; Deuteronomy 14:1; Jeremiah 48:37).