Read chapter 12
SHEKINAH, Hebrew word "to dwell" or "tabernacle." Throughout the time of the book of Genesis God walked with some of His people such as Abraham and Enoch, but He told Moses that He wanted to dwell with His people (Ex. 25:8), so the tabernacle was built and traveled with Israel through the wilderness. The tabernacle was the center of all activity in the Israelite camp. Now in Deuteronomy as they enter the new land they are not to compare or seek God in all their temples and worship places the Canaanites had set up for their gods, but to set up one place, one altar where they are to set the ark of the tabernacle and altar to sacrifice to God; which became Shiloh and then Jerusalem. This one place signified one God and the one way to communicate with God.
The purpose of the command of the text is to secure the unity, and through unity the purity of the worship of God. That there should be one national center for the religion of the people was obviously essential to the great ends of the whole dispensation. Corruption began as soon as the precepts of the text were relaxed or neglected: Compare the case of Gideon, Judges 8:27; of Micah, Judges 18; of Jeroboam, 1 Kings 12:26 ff. (Benson Commentary)Today we don't have a tabernacle that we go to to worship for the Lord God is tabernacling among us. "Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love" (Eph. 3:17).
Christ is in us as believers no matter where we choose to go, but we can still seek the place the Lord our God chooses us to dwell for His glory and not our own so that we have unity and purity of worship to God.
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