Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 132:7

The Lord's "footstool" here mentioned was either the Ark of the Testimony itself, or the place at least where it stood, called Debir, or the Holy of Holies, towards which the Jews in their temple used to worship. The very next words argue so much: "Arise, O LORD, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy strength"; and it is plain out of 1Ch 28:2, where David saith concerning his purpose to have built God an house, "I had in mine heart to build an house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God", where the conjunction and is exegetical, and the same with that is. According to this expression the prophet Jeremy also, in the beginning of the second of his Lamentations, bewaileth that "the Lord had cast down the beauty of Israel" (that is, his glorious Temple), "and remembered not his footstool"(that is, the Ark of the Covenant), "in the day of his wrath"; as Isa 60:7 64:11 Ps 96:6.

That this is the true and genuine meaning of this phrase of worshipping the Lord towards his footstool, besides the confessed custom of the time, is evidently confirmed by a parallel expression of this worshipping posture (Ps 28:2): "Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry unto thee, when I lift up mine hands Kvdq rybd-la towards thy holy oracle":that is, towards the Most Holy place where the ark stood, and from whence God gave his answers. For that rybd Debir, which is here translated "oracle" was the Sanctum Sanctorum or Most Holy place, is clear out of the sixth and eighth chapters of the First Book of Kings; where in the former we read (Ps 132:19) that "Solomon prepared the oracle or Debir, to set the ark of the covenant of the Lord there": in the latter (Ps 132:6), that "the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto his place, into the oracle of the house, to the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubims." Wherefore the authors of the translation used in our Liturgy rendered this passage of the Psalm, "When I hold up my hands toward the mercy seat of thy holy temple"; namely, having respect to the meaning thereof. Thus you see that one of the two must needs be this scabellum pedum, or "footstool" of God, either the ark or mercy seat itself, or the adytum Templi, the Most Holy place, where it stood. For that it is not the whole Temple at large (though it might be so called), but some thing or part of those that are within it the first Words of my text ("We will go into his tabernacles") do argue. If, then, it be the ark (whose cover was that which we call the mercy seat), it seems to have been so called in respect of God's sitting upon the cherubims, under which the ark lay, as it were his footstool: whence sometimes it is described, "The ark of the covenant of the Lord of Hosts, which sitteth upon the cherubims": 1Sa 4:4. If the ark, with the cover thereof (the mercyseat), be considered as God's throne, then the place thereof, the Debir, may not unfitly be termed his "footstool." Or, lastly, if we consider heaven to be the throne of God, as indeed it is, then whatsoever place or monument of presence he hath here on earth is in true esteem no more than his "footstool." —Joseph Mede, 1586-1638.