Albert Barnes Commentary Deuteronomy 12:5

"But unto the place which Jehovah your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come;" — Deuteronomy 12:5 (ASV)

To put his name there means to manifest to men His divine presence. The Targumists rightly refer to the Shechinah; but the expression comprehends all the various modes in which God was pleased to reveal Himself and His attributes to men.

The purpose of the command of the text is to secure the unity, and through unity the purity of the worship of God. That there should be one national center for the religion of the people was obviously essential to the great ends of the whole dispensation. Corruption began as soon as the precepts of the text were relaxed or neglected: Compare the case of Gideon (Judges 8:27); of Micah (Judges 18:0); of Jeroboam (1 Kings 12:26 and following).

The words the place which the Lord shall choose to put His Name there suggest Jerusalem and Solomon’s temple to our minds. But though spoken as they were by a prophet, and interpreted as they are by the Psalms (e.g., Psalms 78:67–69), they have a proper application to the temple, yet they must not be referred exclusively to it. The text does not imply that God would always from the first choose one and the same locality to put His Name there, but that there would always be a locality so chosen by Him; and that there the people must bring their sacrifices, and not offer them at their pleasure or convenience elsewhere.

Neither does the text forbid the offering of sacrifices to God at other places than the one chosen by Him to put His Name there on proper occasions and by proper authority (Judges 6:24; Judges 13:16; 1 Kings 3:4; 1 Kings 18:31). The text simply prohibits sacrifices at any other locality than that which should be appointed or permitted by God for the purpose.