Whereas I have not dwelt in [any] house,.... Fixed, stated, habitation:since the time that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt,even to this day; a space of five or six hundred years, though he might before:but have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle; moving from place to place while in the wilderness, and since in the land of Canaan, first at Gilgal, then at Shiloh, afterwards at Nob, and now at Gibeon.
"Tent" and "tabernacle" are distinguished, though they were but one building and habitation; the tent was the curtains of goats' hair, and the tabernacle the linen curtains, see Ex 26:1.