Shekinah Glory: The Dwelling Presence of God

Question 2113.

The shekinah glory is the visible, radiant presence of God dwelling among His people – the cloud and fire and brightness that filled the tabernacle, settled on the temple, and made Israel unique among all the nations of the earth. Curiously, the word “shekinah” itself never appears in the Bible. It comes from the later Jewish teachers, who coined it from the Hebrew verb shakan, “to dwell” or “to settle”. But while the word is post-biblical, the reality it names runs like a golden thread from Exodus to Revelation.

That root, shakan, is worth pausing over, because Scripture itself builds on it. The tabernacle is the mishkan – literally “the dwelling place” – from the same verb. So when we speak of the shekinah glory, we are speaking of God’s dwelling presence made visible: the moments when the God who fills heaven and earth pitched His tent, quite literally, in the middle of a camp of former slaves.

What Does Shekinah Glory Mean?

Let me put a definition on the table: the shekinah glory is the localised, visible manifestation of God’s dwelling presence, usually appearing as cloud, fire or overwhelming radiance. It is closely tied to the Hebrew word kavod, “glory”, whose root idea is weight or heaviness – God’s glory is His presence felt in all its weight, as I have explored in The glory of God: what Scripture means. Where the glory of God is the outshining of all that He is, the shekinah glory is that outshining come down to dwell at a particular address.

The pillar of cloud and fire that led Israel out of Egypt was its travelling form, which I have written about in What was the pillar of cloud and fire in the wilderness? But the shekinah was never content to lead from in front; the whole direction of the story is God moving closer – from ahead of the people, to among the people, and finally, wonder of wonders, into the people.

Where the Shekinah Glory Settled

Strictly, the first settling came at the mountain, and the Old Testament uses the very verb behind our word to describe it: “The glory of the LORD dwelt [shakan] on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days… Now the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel” (Exodus 24:16-17). Sinai was the shekinah glory’s first recorded home in Israel’s story; from the mountain it moved into the tent.

The great settling among the people came when Moses finished the tabernacle:

“Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.”

Exodus 40:34-35 (ESV)

Even Moses – the man who spoke with God face to face – could not go in. Centuries later the scene repeated itself at the dedication of Solomon’s temple, when “a cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD” (1 Kings 8:10-11). Notice the pattern: when the shekinah glory arrives in fullness, human activity simply stops. The priests could not carry on with the service sheet. There is a lesson there about what the presence of God does to our busyness, if we will hear it.

The Glory That Departed

But the shekinah glory could be grieved away, and the saddest chapters in Ezekiel show it happening. In a series of visions, the prophet watches the glory of the LORD rise from its place in the temple’s inner sanctuary, pause at the threshold (Ezekiel 9:3; 10:4), move to the east gate (10:18-19), and finally lift from the city altogether to stand over “the mountain that is on the east side of the city” (11:23) – the Mount of Olives. Israel’s idolatry had made the sanctuary uninhabitable, and the glory departed. Trace the shekinah glory through those chapters and you learn how slowly heaven gives up on a sanctuary.

Yet look how it departed: in stages, slowly, pausing at every exit like a reluctant friend who keeps turning back at the door. I find that one of the most moving pictures of the heart of God anywhere in Scripture – judgement carried out, but carried out with grief, with delay, with every opportunity for repentance. The name given to Eli’s grandson had already taught Israel the vocabulary for such a day: Ichabod, “The glory has departed” (1 Samuel 4:21). A sanctuary without the shekinah is just furniture.

The Glory Returns in Jesus

The second temple, built after the exile, has a conspicuous silence hanging over it: Scripture never records the shekinah glory filling it as it had filled the tabernacle and Solomon’s temple. The kindled expectation of the prophets waited centuries for an answer – and then the answer walked in through the gates. John chooses his words with surgical care: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory” (John 1:14). The Greek verb is eskenosen, “pitched his tent”, “tabernacled” – the Gospel writer is deliberately reaching back to the mishkan. In Jesus, the shekinah glory returned to Israel, no longer veiled in cloud but veiled in flesh.

Once you see it, the Gospels shine with it. At the transfiguration the veil slipped: “his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light”, and a bright cloud – that cloud – overshadowed them (Matthew 17:2, 5). When Jesus stood in the temple courts, the glory that priests could not stand before was standing among the people, and most of them never knew. And when He left the temple for the last time, pronouncing it “desolate” (Matthew 23:38), He went out eastward to the Mount of Olives – tracing, step for step, the departure route of the glory in Ezekiel’s vision. I do not believe that is coincidence. I believe it is the same Person.

The Glory Yet to Come

Ezekiel’s visions do not end with departure. In his closing chapters he sees a future temple, and “the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east… And the glory of the LORD entered the temple by the gate facing east” (Ezekiel 43:2, 4) – the glory returning by the very route it left. Taking prophecy in its plain, literal sense, as I consistently seek to do, I understand this as the millennial temple, when the Lord Jesus reigns on this earth and the shekinah glory dwells visibly with Israel once more. The departure of Ezekiel 10 was never the last word; the shekinah glory has a return ticket.

And beyond the Millennium stands the final state, where the symbol gives way entirely to the substance: “And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Revelation 21:23). Habakkuk’s promise reaches its fulfilment at last: “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). The whole creation becomes the dwelling place; the whole universe, so to speak, becomes the mishkan.

So, now what?

Here is the truth that should stop you in your tracks: if you belong to Jesus, the shekinah glory that filled the tabernacle now dwells in you. “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). The verb of the mishkan has moved house. Priests once could not stand in that presence; you carry it into the office, the school run and the supermarket queue. The shekinah glory has not retired; it has relocated. Did you carry it consciously this week?

That truth also sets the direction of your transformation. The pattern of the whole story – glory descending, glory dwelling, glory transforming what it inhabits – is now happening in miniature in every believer, which is a staggering thing to say about a Tuesday. “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). The shekinah glory is no longer something to visit; it is something you are being changed by, and changed into, as you keep looking at Jesus.

So guard the sanctuary. Ezekiel teaches us that the glory can be grieved by what we welcome into the temple – and you are the temple now. What in your life would the glory pause at the threshold over? Deal with it, not in fear, but because the Guest is too wonderful to lose the sense of. The glory that once departed has promised, in Jesus, never to leave you nor forsake you. Live this week like someone who believes it.