Bede : The tabernacle of testimony was with our fathers in the desert. Because they said he was acting against the holy place, here he shows that the Lord does not greatly esteem decorated stone but desires the splendor of heavenly souls. Where he wants it to be understood that just as the tabernacle was in the wilderness before the construction of the temple, so they should understand the temple itself to be destroyed when a better state succeeds. As Jeremiah once foretold, saying: Do not trust in lying words, saying: The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord (Jerem. VII). And after some time: I will do to this house, in which my name is called, and in which you have trust, as I did to Shiloh, where my name dwelled at the beginning, and I will cast you away from my face (Ibid.). — Commentary on Acts John Chrysostom : "Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion he had seen." "But a Tabernacle," say you, "there was (the Tabernacle) 'of Witness.'" (Yes,) this is why it was: that they should have God for Witness: this was all. "According to the fashion," it says, "that was shown thee on the mount:" so that on the mount was the Original. And this Tabernacle, moreover, "in the wilderness," was carried about, and not locally fixed. And he calls it, "Tabernacle of witness:" i.e. (for witness) of the miracles, of the statutes. This is the reason why both it and those (the fathers) had no Temple. — Homily on Acts 17 John Chrysostom : Seest thou, how the holy place is there wherever God may be? For to this end also he says, "in the wilderness," to compare place with place. Then the benefit (conferred upon them): And our fathers that came after brought it in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David. — Homily on Acts 17 Oecumenius : The tent of testimony, that is, of the commands of God, which was the tent of Moses shown by God on Mount Sinai. It was said to have been established by God so that they would have God as witness, because its explanation was on the mountain, and he himself had described it to Moses. — Commentary on Acts