the day that I brought
up the children of Israel out of Egypt even to this day, and have
walked in a tent and in a tabernacle._ Ver. 7. _In all that I have
walked among the children of Israel, have I spoken one word with any of
the tribes of Israel whom I commanded to feed My people Israel, saying.
Why build ye Me not a house of cedar?_"

According to several interpreters, these words are intended as a
consolation to David for the delay in building the temple, and
convey this sense: that God did not require the temple, that the
building of it was of no consequence,--as sufficiently appears from
the circumstance of His not having hitherto urged it. But such a view
would ill agree with the great importance which David continues, even
afterwards, to ascribe to the building of the temple,--with the grand
efforts of Solomon towards it,--and with the exulting words which are
uttered by the latter, in 1 Kings viii. 13, after the work has been
accomplished: "I have built Thee an house to dwell in, a settled place
for Thee to abide in for ever." A comparison of 1 Kings viii. 16-20
furnishes us with a clue to the right interpretation. In that passage,
the period before David is contrasted with that during which David
lived. (Compare the [Hebrew: eth], _now_, in ver. 8.) Hitherto,
everything in the government had borne a provisional character, and,
hence, the sanctuary also. But now that, after the unsettled state of
things under [Pg 136] the Judges and Saul, _the definitive government_
has been called into existence with David, to whom the Lord will make
an house, the _definitive sanctuary_ also shall be built,--only, that
it shall not be founded by David, but by his seed.[2] The words, _I
have walked_--literally, I have been walking, I have continued
walking--_in a tent and in a tabernacle_, indicate not only that the
Lord dwelt in a portable sanctuary, but also, that the place of this
sanctuary was oftentimes changed, from one station to another in the
wilderness, then to Gilgal, Shiloh, Nob and Gibeon. This changing of
the place of the tabernacle is still more distinctly pointed out, in
the parallel passage in 1 Chron. xvii. 5: "And I have been from tent to
tent, from tabernacle to tabernacle;" _i.e._, I went from one tent into
the other, _e.g._, from the dwelling-place of Shiloh into that of
Nob,--a mode of expression which pays no attention to the circumstance
whether or not the tent was materially the same. Instead of, "Wit