Deuteronomy 12:5

Deu. 12:5. God forbore to choose Him a place in Israel for His settled habitation to place His name there till the days of David, which was a manifestation of the displeasure of God against that people for their frequent transgressions and apostasies. He refused to settle His abode among them as long as they remained so unsteady in His service and so perverse in their ways; but walked in a tent and in a tabernacle as ready to depart, or at least undetermined whether to stay with them or not, and yet in His great goodness loath to leave them; but at last He did actually depart from them, when He forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh. But remembering His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He returned again, but then stayed in the border of the land, as though it were to see whether they would reform or no before He would again enter in amongst them. But when on long trial it proved that they never were like to appear worthy that He should be with them, at length David, a great typical Mediator, appeared. God for his sake came into the midst of the land, and chose Him a place in Israel "to put His name there," and took up His settled abode there, and instead of a tent dwelt in a temple. God speaks of it to David as an instance of His peculiar favor to him, that He now at length consented to settle His abode; that He had never moved any such thing before. David had spoken of having a house built for him (2 Sam. 7), and God there declares that for his sake He would show favor to Israel, and would plant them that they might dwell in a place of their own, etc.; and it is often mentioned afterwards as the reason why He did not cast off Israel. This is another instance of God's deferring the accomplishment of that which, by the manner of prediction, was expected to be accomplished immediately upon their being settled in their own land (see note on chap. 11:24, supra), for David seemed to expect an immediate accomplishment of the glorious things that were to be brought in by the Messiah on the return of the Jews from Babylon (see Deuteronomy 9:23; Deuteronomy 9:24). So the primitive Christians seemed to expect Christ's last coming to accompany the destruction of Jerusalem.