...it is especially in exile that another formula of covenantal promise is most used:

"You shall be my people and I will be your God" ...

...That formula means to assert the Lord's presence against all the apparent evidence. Just where he seems most surely absent, these texts affirm his characteristic will to be with his people and for his people. Israel is always like Jacob who, in a moment of dismay and then surprise, must say: "Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it" (Gen. 28:16).

This note was recorded by Joshua Neds-Fox from page 70 of The Bible Makes Sense.