Matthew Poole and continuators on Psalms 132:6

6 Loe, we have heard of it at Ephratah : we found it in the fields of the wood .

Of the place or habitation for the Lord last mentioned.

Either, 1. in Bethlehem, which is called Ephratah, Gen. 35. 19. & 48. 7. Mich. 5. 2. So the sence is either this, We heard a rumour at Bethlehem among Davids relations, that the Ark should be removed to a new place, and that David had pitched upon it; or this, We heard that Bethlehem would be the place for it, because it was the City of David. Or rather, 2. in the Tribe of Ephraim, which was called also Ephratah or Ephrathah, as is manifest, because the men of Ephraim were called Ephrathites, as Iudg. 1[illegible: 1+ letters]. 5. in the Hebrew Text, though in the English it be Ephraimite. So Ieroboam is called an Ephrathite, 1 Kings 11. 26. So the sence is, We heard it from our fathers, that the ancient place of it was Shiloh, which was in the land of Ephraim. Whereby he covertly intimates that God rejected and forsook that place, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim, as it is said Psal. 78. 67. that so he might make way for Zion, which was the place chosen by God for it, as it follows here v. 13.

Afterwards we found it elsewhere.

i. e. In a field or in one of the fields of the wood, for that little spot of ground in which the Tabernacle or Temple was built, was not likely to be in several fields. Thus Iepthah was buried in the cities of Gilead, Iudg. 12. 7. i. e. in one of them. This is meant either, 1. of the Mount Moriah, which might possibly be called the field of the wood, as being anciently a place full of wood, Gen. 22. 13. or of the threshing-floor of Araunah, of which see 2 Sam. 24. 28. which before the building of the Temple is said to have been a woody place. Or rather, 2. of Kiriath-jearim, which signifies a city of woods, in the field or territory whereof the Ark was seated for twenty years, as we read 1 Sam. 7. 1, 2. And from this place it was removed to Zion, 2 Sam. 6. 1, &c.