The tent of meeting, where God dwelt with the Israelites on their journey through the desert, was "some distance away, outside the camp." When St John tells us that "the word was made flesh and dwelt among us", his actual words are "he pitched his tent among us." There can be little doubt that John intentionally used the word for tent, actually for a number of reasons, too many to deal with here.

The "meeting tent" mentioned in Exodus was certainly part of the background of John's thought. Since we are the people of the New Testament, our place of encounter with God is no longer a tent set at a distance, but the person of Jesus, who came to live, not at a distance, but "in our midst". God in Jesus lives, not just near us, but with us, as Emmanuel, "God with us" Jesus thus affirmed: "to have seen me is to have seen the Father."