1. Rabbinical Import. — The use of the term is first found in the Targums, where it forms a frequent periph- rasis for God, considered as dwelling among the chil- dren of Israel, and is thus used, especially by Onkelos, to avoid ascribing corporeity to God himself, as Castell tells us, and may be compared to the analogous periph- rasis so frequent in the Targum of Jonathan, '' the Word of the Lord." IMany Christian writers have thought that this threefold expression for the Deity — the Lord, the Word of the Lord, and the Shechinah — indicates the knowledge of a trinity of persons in the Godhead, and accordingly, following some Kabbinical writers, identify the Shechinah with the Holy Spirit. Others, however, deny this (Calmet, Diet, of the Bible; Saubert [Joh.], On the Logos, § xix, in Critic. Sucr.; Glass, Pliilolofi. Sacr. v, 1 , vii, etc.).
Without stopping to discuss this question, it will most conduce to gii e an accurate knowledge of the use of the term Shechinah by the Jews themselves if we produce a few of the most striking passages in the Tar- gums where it occurs. In Exod. xxv, 8, where the He- brew has " Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dicell ( "^riSD'iJI ) among them," Onkelos has "I will make my Shechinah to dwell among them." In xxix, 45, 46, for the Hebrew " I will direll among the children of Israel," Onkelos has " 1 will make my Shechinah to dwell," etc. In Psa. Ixxiv, 2, for "this Mount Zion wherein thou hast dwelt" the Targum has "wherein thy Shechinah hatli dwelt." In the description of the dedication of Solomon's Temple (1 Kings viii, 12, 13) the Targum of Jonathan rims thus: "The Lord is pleased to make his Shechinah dwell in Jerusalem. I
have built the house of the sanctuary for the house of thy Shechinah forever," where it should be noticed that in ver. 13 the Hebrew 'Z'ii is not used, but bST ami 3w"^. In 1 Kings vi, 13, for the Hebrew "I will dwell among the children of Israel" Jonathan has "I will make my Shechinah dwell," etc. In Isa. vi, 5 he has the combination •• the glory of the Shechinah of the King of ages, the Lord of hosts;" and in the next verse he paraphrases " from off the altar" by " from before his Shechinah on the throne of glorj' in the lofty heavens that are above the altar" (comp. also Numb, v, 3 ; xxxv, 34, Psa. Ixviii, 17, 18; cxxxv, 21; Isa. xxxiii, 5; Ivii, 15; Joel iii, 17, 21, and numerous other passages). On the other hand, it should be noticed that the Targums never render " the cloud" or " the glory" by Shechinah, but by X3D> and iTHp"*, and that even in such passages as Exod. xxiv, 16, 17; Numb, ix, 17, 18, 22; x, 12, neither the mention of the cloud nor the constant use of the verb "2^ in the Hebrew provokes any reference to the Shechinah. Hence, as regards the use of the word Shechinah in the Targums, it may be defined as a periphrasis for God whenever he is said to dwell on Zion among Israel or between the cherubims, and so on, in order, as before said, to avoid the slightest ap- proach to materialism. Far most frequently this term is introduced when the verb "jDO occurs in the Hebrew text; but occasionally, as in some of the above-cited instances, where it does not, but where the paraphrase wished to interpose an abstraction corresponding to presence to break the bolder anthropopathy of the He- brew writer.
Our view of the Targumistic notion of the Shechinah would not be amiplete if we did not add that, though, as we have seen, the Jews reckoned the Shechinah among the marks of the divine favor which were want- ing to the second Temple, they manifestly expected the return of the Shechinah in the days of the Messiah. Thus Hag. i, 8, " Build the house, and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord" is paraphrased by Jonathan " I will cause my Shechinah to dwell in it in glory." Zech. ii, 10, "Lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord" is paraphrased " I will be revealed, and will cause my She- chinah to dwell in the midst of thee;" and viii, 3. "I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem," is paraphrased " I will make my Shechinah dwell in the midst of Jerusalem ;" and, lastly, in Ezek. xliii, 7, 9, in the vision of the return of the glory of God to the Temple, Jonathan paraphrases thus' "Son of man, this is the place of the house of the throne of my glory, and tins is the place of the house of the dwell- ing of my Shechinah, where I will make my Shechinah dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever. . . . Now let them cast away their idols, . . . and I will make my Shechinah dwell in the midst of them forever" (comp. Isa. iv, 5, where the return of the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night is foretold as to take place in the days of the Messiah).