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Perhaps the noblest form of dwelling-place, and the one most akin to Moses' meaning, is that of human friendship. As little children, when taken among strangers, we looked all around for mother, and if only she were there we rushed to her, and hid in her, covering our face, but feeling safe, and able presently to look out on the guests as from a window in a house on a crowd. Or, in later life, it has been our lot to be misrepresented and misunderstood by all except by one man of noblest fashion. And it has seemed as if we were almost indifferent to all beside, so long as He is pleased and satisfied. "Let the cruel winds of slander come," we have cried, "and reproach, and hate; He understands and appreciates me; judged by His standard, I am true; tested by His opinion, I am right against a world in arms, I am content to abide in His approval and be at peace." Or, in other circumstances still, you have learnt to love, with all your heart and soul, so that your existence seems almost to have passed into that of another, and to be safe, restful, almost careless of all else, so long as that house stands unsmitten by the tempest which whirls around. All these are dwelling-places to which souls betake themselves, destined, alas! all of them, to perish, except that human love which, in so far as it is threaded with the Divine, partakes of the nature of God Himself, and is eternal. But none of them can give to the soul such blessed rest as to be able to say to God, "Thou, O Lord, art my rock, and my fortress, my shield, and my high tower." It was thus that the apostles made their dwelling-place in the nature of their Lord. Their life was hid with Christ in God. So our blessed Lord lived in God His Father. Just as a child looks out on a mob in the streets from the security of the strong castellated dwelling, where it sits on its father's knee, so did Jesus look out on the malice and hatred of men from His rest in the very heart of God. This is the true life, which, thank God! is within the reach of us all. Put God between yourself and men with their strife, or sorrow with its fret and care, chafing like the perpetual wash of the wave which retreats only to return. Ask what God says of you. measure yourself only by His standards. Seek only His well-done. Dwell deep in God. And because thou shelf have made the Lord, even the Most High, thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. As the cathedral of Cologne rears itself in incomparable majesty beyond the trailer houses around, offering a permanence which storms and time cannot impair, so does God rear Himself as our all-sufficient dwelling-place amid the passage of creation, of generations, and of centuries.

(F. B. Meyer, B.A.)

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KJV: {A Prayer of Moses the man of God.} Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.

WEB: Lord, you have been our dwelling place for all generations.