1. It was the immediate residence of the Deity —
[" I have loved," says lie, " the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honour divellethr When Moses made the tabernacle, it pleased God to come down and honour it with his more immediate presence, and to manifest there his glory in the sight of all Israeli There God promised, in a more especial manner, to meet his people; saying, "Thou shalt put the mercy-seat above upon the ark ; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee : and there will I meet with thee ; and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat, and from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of IsraeP." The same blessed privilege was given to all Israel, through the medium of their High Priest, as long as the tabernacle and the temple stood : and on numberless occasions had David reaped the benefit of this condescending and merciful appoint- ment. Can we wonder, then, that he should love the house of God, where he enjoyed so vast a privilege, and where such transcendent benefits were accorded to him ? But we know from himself what his feelings were in relation to it : " One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I will seek after ; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple"^."]
2. There he was enabled to worship God in the way that God himself had appointed —
[Though God might be worshipped acceptably in every place, yet it was at the tabernacle only that any sacrifice could be offered to him, or that a full access to him could be enjoyed. There alone could a sinner be sprinkled with the blood of his ofiTering, and have the pardon of his sins thus sealed upon his soul. Hence, when David was driven from Jerusalem, and forced to take refuge in a heathen land, this was the great subject of his complaint ; not, that he was separated from his friends, but that he was cut off" from communion with his God in the estabHshed ordinances of his worship. Hear his sad complaint : " As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God! My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God ? My tears have been my meat day and night ; while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me : for I had gone with the multitude ; I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy-day As with a sword in my bones, mine
" Exod. xl. 34—- 38. c Exod. xxv. 21, 22. ^ Ps. xxvii. 4.