The Mekhilta makes a striking observation about the phrase "in the mountain of Your inheritance." The Temple is beloved by God in a way that surpasses even creation itself. How? The evidence lies in the method of construction.
When the Holy One Blessed be He created the world, He did so by pronouncement — by speech alone. The Psalmist confirms (Psalms 33:6): "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made." God spoke, and the universe appeared. The heavens, the earth, the seas, the stars — all of it called into being by nothing more than divine utterance. Creation was an act of speech.
But the Temple was different. The Temple was an act of labor. The verse says "which You have wrought, O Lord" — the Hebrew implying physical making, hands-on construction, craftsmanship. God did not merely speak the Temple into existence. He wrought it, shaped it, built it with intention and effort that went beyond a spoken command.
The theological implications are extraordinary. The entire cosmos — from galaxies to grains of sand — required only God's voice. But the Temple, a single building on a single hilltop in Jerusalem, required God's hands. This tells us something about what the Temple means in the divine economy: it is more precious to God than the universe itself, because He invested more of Himself in making it.