“Jehovah found His abode in the bosom of his redeemed people, and nowhere else. Redemption was the necessary basis of God's habitation amongst men. Apart from redemption, the divine presence could only prove the destruction of man. But redemption being known, that presence secures man's highest privilege and brightest glory.

God dwelt in the midst of his people Israel. He came down from heaven, not only to redeem them out of the land of Egypt, but to be their traveling- companion through the wilderness. What a thought! The Most High God taking up His abode on the sand of the desert, and in the very bosom of his redeemed congregation. Truly, there was nothing like that throughout the whole wide, wide world. There was that host of six hundred thousand men, besides women and children, in a sterile desert, where there was not a blade of grass, not a drop of water- no visible source of subsistence. How were they to be fed? God was there! How were they to be kept in order? God was there! How were they to track their way through a howling wilderness, where there was no way? God was there!” (C.H. Mackintosh, Notes on the book of Numbers, 1882, p. 432)