Acts 7:45

‘Which also our fathers, in their turn, brought in with Joshua (Jesus) when they entered on the possession of the nations, whom God thrust out before the face of our fathers, to the days of David,'

It was then brought into the land by another Jesus (Greek), by Joshua (Hebrew), when they took over ‘the possession of the nations' at the time when God thrust them out before them. So God's original ‘dwellingplace' was God-given and came from outside the land, brought into it when God acted in order to give them the land as their possession, a land which had belonged to the nations. It was thus the God of the Tabernacle Who had given them the land. This situation continued until the days of David. They worshipped at the God-given, God designed, portable, wilderness Tabernacle received at the mountain of God outside the land.

The contrast with the Temple is quite clear and quite startling. It was not of the land, it was God-designed and the God Who was connected with it was powerfully effective. Being a tent, which could be used when necessary but was not a permanent home, it was suitable as an earthly place where the transcendent God could come to meet His people without being tied down. And it entered into the land with Him when God took possession of it. Thus possession of the land was linked with the Tabernacle, not the Temple. There were in fact many ordinary Jews who saw the Tabernacle as the ideal place of worship, including the Covenanters at Qumran. But what they failed to do, unlike Stephen, was to see beyond the Tabernacle to the heavenly Tabernacle (compare Hebrews 8:2; Hebrews 9:11). They were going backwards instead of forwards.