And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God.
I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. This was the high and special privilege of Israel, that God had chosen their land, their tabernacle (afterward their temple), as the place of His residence; and throughout the whole duration of their national existence, it was their grand distinction above the nations that Yahweh condescended to dwell among them by the material symbols of His glory-to dwell among them, and give unmistakeable proofs to the world, by His procedure toward Israel, that He was the only true God.
They themselves knew that 'He was the Lord their God.' 'The migratory tabernacle, as well as the elaborate temple on mount Moriah, was a pledge to the Israelites that God-no mere abstraction, but a present, living, reigning God-had entered into fellowship with His elect, and though the heaven and the heaven of heavens were His (Deuteronomy 10:14), had condescended to develop their religious sentiment by tabernacling in the midst of them. The sanctuary had thus for them the kind of meaning which the Incarnation now possesses for us-it was the index of God's kingdom upon earth-it brought the infinite within the limits of the finite-it was raised unto the meeting-place of human and divine, and so became the feeble prelude to the mightiest of all facts' (Hardwick, 2:, p. 331).