The heathen placed their altars and offered their worship wherever they thought fit, according to their notions of the deity and his service; but Israel was not to do so unto Jehovah their God: he himself would choose the places where he was to be worshipped, and there alone might they come with offering and service.
As the revealed God—the God whose being and perfections had been made known, not by a vague revelation of him in nature merely, but expressly by his putting or recording his Name historically and locally among men (cf.
Exodus 20:24)—so should there be a definite place chosen and appointed by him where he would come to receive the worship of his people, where he would record his Name, and where he would be known for a Refuge and a Helper to all who put their trust in him (Psalms 48:3; Psalms 76:1, etc.
; Daniel 9:18). The Name of God is God himself as revealed; and he puts his Name on any place where he specially manifests himself as present (cf. 1 Kings 8:29), and which is consequently to be regarded as his habitation or dwelling-place.
Hence the temple at Jerusalem was in later times known as the place of the Name of Jehovah (Isaiah 18:7), the dwelling-place of his glory (Psalms 26:8). But he is the God of the whole earth, and therefore, wherever he is pleased to reveal himself, in whatever place he makes his Name to be known, there he is to be worshipped.
There is no reference in this passage to the temple at Jerusalem specially, as some have supposed; what is here enjoined is only a practical application of the Divine promise, that in all places where God would record his Name, there he would come to bless his people (Exodus 20:24).
The reference here, therefore, is quite general, and applies to any place where, by the Divine appointment, the tabernacle might be set up and the worship of Jehovah instituted. Unto his habitation shall ye seek.
To seek to any place means, primarily, to resort to it, to frequent it (cf. 2 Chronicles 1:5), but with the implied purpose of inquiring there for something, as for responses or oracles, when the place resorted to was that in which God had put his Name.