ושכנתי בתוכם. ולא אמר בתוכו לומר שהמקום אשר יקדישו לשכנו יהיה בתוך בני ישראל שיקיפו המשכן בד' דגלים.
Avot d'Rebbe Natan:
Rabbi Tarfon says: Great is creative labor melakhah), for the Holy Blessed One Did not cause the Shechinah to dwell within Israel until they did melakhah, as it says, "make for me a sanctuary and I shall dwell in their midst."
Torah Temimah adds:
And it could be that this midrash is based on a close read of the verse. It should have said "I will dwell inside it" and not "inside them." Therefore, the midrash says that in truth there is no relevance for a building to house the Holy Blessed One, as it says in Isaiah "the Heavens are my throne and the Earth is my footstool, what home could you build for me?" Rather, the matter is that the Holy Blessed One wanted Israel to be involved in the creative labor for God's sake and commanded them to build the sanctuary and on account of God's favor in their work, the Shechinah would dwell among them in all places where they were. And this explains the greatness of creative labor such that in exchange for this labor, the Holy Blessed One graced Israel with the dwelling of God's blessed Shechinah.