The rabbins affirm that the Shechinah first resided in the tabernacle prepared by Moses in the wilderness, into which it descended on the day of its consecration in the figure of a cloud. It passed thence into the sanc- tuary of Solomon's Temple on the day of its dedication by this prince, where it continued till the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Chald;eans, and was not afterwards seen there.
2. Bihlicnl History. — As regards the visible manifes- tation of the Divine Presence dwelling among the Is- raelites to which the term Shechinah has attached it- self, the idea which the different accounts in Scripture convex is that of a most brilliant and glorious light en- veloped in a cloud, and usually concealed by the cloud so that the cluud itself was fur the most part alone vis- il)le; but on particular occasions the glory (in Heb. ■^ Tl^S, in Chald. "^ "1)57) appeared. Thus, at the
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Exodus, " the Lord went before" the Israelites "by day in a iiillar of cloud . . . and by night in a [jillar of (ire to give them light." Again, we read that this pillar "was a cloud and darkness" to the Egyptians, "but it gave light by night" to the Israelites. But in tlie morning watch "the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the i)illar of tire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians" — i. e. as I'hilo (quoted by Patrick) explains it, " the ticry appearance of the Deity shone forth from the cloud," and by its amazing brightness confoiui<lcd them. !So, too, in the Pirke Elkzer it is said, "The blessed (iod aiipeared in his glory upon the sea, and it fled back," with wliich Patrick compares Psa. Ixxvii, 10, "The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee; they were afraid," where the Targiim has "They saw thy Shechinah in the midst of the waters." In Exod. xix, 0, " the Lord said to Mo- ses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud," and accord- ingly in ver. 16 we read that "a thick clontl" rested "upon the mount," and in ver. 18 that "Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in tire." This is further explained in xxiv, IC, where we read that " the glory of the Lord abode upon ]Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it (i. e. as Aben- Ezra explains it, the glory) six days." But upon the seventh day, when the Lord called "unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud," tliere was a breaking-forth of the glory through the cloud, for "the sight of ihe glory of the Lord was like devouring tire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel" (ver. 17). So, again, when God, as it were, took possession of the Tabernacle at its tirst completion (xl, 34, 35), " the cloud covered the tent of the congregation (externally), and the glory of the Lord tilled the tabernacle (within), and Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the con- gregation" (rather, o\' mee/inf/') ; just as at the dedication of Solomon's Tem|)le (1 Kings viii, 10, 11) "the 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 had tilled the house of the Lord." In the tab- ernacle, however, as in the Temple, this was onlv a temporary state of things, for throughout the books of Leviticus and Numbers we find Moses constantly enter- ing into the tabernacle. When he did so, the cloud which rested over it externally, dark by day and lumi- nous at night (Numb, ix, 15, 16), came down and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses inside, "face to face, as a man talketh with his friend" (Exod. xxxiii, 7-11). It was on such occasions that Moses "heard the voice of one speaking unto him from off the mercy -seat that was upon the ark of testi- mony, from between the two cherubim" (Numb, vii, 89), in accordance with Exod. xxv, 22; Lev. xvi, 2. But it does not appear that the glory was habitually seen either by Moses or the people. Occasionally, how- ever, it flashed forth from the cloud which concealed it, as Exod. xvi, 7, 10; Lev. ix, 6, 23, when " the glor_y of the Lord appeared unto all the people" according to a previous promise, or as Numb, xiv, 10; xvi, 10,42; xx, 6, suddenly to strike terror in the people in their rebell- ion. The last occasion on which the glory of the Lord appeared was that mentioned in xx, 6, when they were in Kadcsh in the fortieth year of the Exodus, and mur- mured for want of water; and the last express mention of Ihe cloud as visibly present over the tabernacle is in Dent, xxxi, 15, just before the death of ]\Ioses. The cloud had not been mentictned before since the second year of the Exodus (Numb, x, 11, 34; xii, 5, 10) ; but as the description in ix, 15-23; Exod. xl, 38, relates to the whole time of their wanderings in the wilderness, wc may conclude that, at all events, the cloud visibly ac- companied them through all the migrations mentioned in Numb, xxxiii till they reached the jilains of Jloab and till iNIoses died. From this time we have no men- tion whatever in the history either of the cloud, or of the glory, or of the voice from Ijetween the cherubim, till the dedication of Solomon's Tem[)le. But since it is