It comes from a Hebrew root meaning to settle rather than to visit. The thread runs from a tent Moses could not enter to a Spirit who lives in people.
The phrase Shekinah glory does not appear anywhere in the Bible, and neither does the word Shekinah on its own. It is a later Hebrew term from the verb shakan, meaning to dwell, coined by Jewish teachers to speak about God's settled presence without using language that made God sound physical.
So the word is not biblical, but unlike a lot of invented church vocabulary, the idea behind it is on almost every page. Scripture has a whole vocabulary for God's weight, His dwelling and His visible presence.
And the thread runs somewhere specific. It starts in a tent in a desert, moves into a building in Jerusalem, leaves that building in one of the saddest chapters in the prophets, and then shows up in a person.
Not to visit. To take up residence. It carries the idea of settling in a place rather than passing through it.
Mishkan, the dwelling place, which is the Hebrew name for the tabernacle. Your Bible usually translates it tabernacle, and it literally means the place where He settles.
Later rabbis built a noun from this root to describe God's presence dwelling among people. It is a good word and an ancient one. It is simply not a biblical one.
Heaviness. The same root gives words for being heavy or weighty. Glory in Hebrew is not brightness first. It is substance.
God's glory is God's weight, the felt reality of who He is. Which is why people in Scripture react to it physically rather than aesthetically.
Doxa, which is where doxology comes from. See the glory of God.
Glory is weight and dwelling is settling. Put them together and you get a God who moves in rather than one who appears impressively.
The visible presence in Exodus is a cloud by day and fire by night, going ahead of the people through the wilderness. Then the tabernacle gets finished, and this happens.
“Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it.”
Exodus 40:34 and 35Read that second sentence again. Moses. The one man who had been going in and out, who spoke with God face to face, cannot get through the door.
The same thing happens centuries later when Solomon finishes the temple. The priests cannot stand to perform their service because the glory has filled the house. Twice, at the two great moments of construction, the effect is that the professionals have to stop.
A special atmosphere in a meeting, a feeling that arrives when the music is right, something produced by doing worship well.
Something so substantial that trained people cannot continue working. Nobody in Scripture generates it, and everybody who encounters it is put on the floor or put outside.
Every post here is free to read. If this one helped you, you can help keep it that way. Pick an amount and finish on Stripe's secure checkout.
Change your amount, update your card, or cancel anytime. Enter the email you give with and Stripe sends you a secure link.
Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
This is the part of the story most people have never been shown, and it is essential to understanding everything after it.
Ezekiel is in exile in Babylon while Jerusalem is still standing. In a vision he is taken into the temple, shown what is happening inside it, and then watches the glory move. It rises from the inner sanctuary, pauses at the threshold, moves to the east gate, and finally goes up from the city and stops on the mountain to the east.
“The glory of the LORD went up from within the city and stopped above the mountain east of it.”
Ezekiel 11:23It leaves slowly, in stages, like something reluctant. And then the building is just a building, which is exactly how Babylon was able to burn it.
Worth knowing: the mountain east of Jerusalem is the Mount of Olives. Centuries later that is where Jesus stays during His final week, and where He weeps over the city. See the Mount of Olives.
What does Ezekiel see happen to the glory in the temple?
Ezekiel 10 and 11 describe the glory rising from the sanctuary, pausing at the threshold, moving to the east gate and finally going up from the city to the mountain east of it, which is the Mount of Olives.
Now read the most familiar verse in John's prologue with the Hebrew background in your head.
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
John 1:14Made his dwelling is one Greek word, skenoo, and it means to pitch a tent. Judith Jones puts the connection plainly, writing that the Word of God pitches its tent among us, from the same root as the word for tent.
That is not an accident of vocabulary. John is writing for people who knew the Greek Old Testament, where the tabernacle is the skene. He is saying the tent is back, and this time it has a face.
The tabernacle was portable by design. It went where the people went, which is the opposite of a shrine you travel to.
Moses outside the door, priests unable to stand. The presence was real and it was walled off, and the whole sacrificial system existed to manage that distance.
We have seen his glory, John writes. Not from a distance and not through a curtain. People ate with it, argued with it and fell asleep in a boat with it.
At the crucifixion the temple curtain tears from top to bottom, which is an odd detail to include unless somebody wanted you to notice which direction it was torn from.
The glory that put Moses outside the door later sat down to dinner with people nobody else would eat with.
Here is the last step, and it is the one that makes this more than a history lesson. Paul asks the Corinthians a question as though the answer should be obvious.
“Do you not know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in your midst?”
1 Corinthians 3:16Follow the line. A tent in a desert. A building in Jerusalem. A man in Galilee. And then people. The trajectory runs from something you had to stand outside of, to something you could talk to, to something God put inside you.
People sometimes use Shekinah glory to describe a feeling in a room, and we are careful with that. Feelings in worship are real and good and we are not against them. But if the presence of God depends on the lighting, the song selection or how the night went, then it is something we are producing, and Scripture never describes it that way. The New Testament teaching is that He has already moved in and that this is true on a flat Tuesday with no music. That is a far better arrangement than an atmosphere you have to recreate weekly.
See we are the temple of God, your body is a temple and who the Holy Spirit is.
The root word underneath all of this is the one worth keeping. Shakan does not mean visit. It means settle, take up residence, stay.
That is the claim the whole thread is making. Not that God turns up occasionally when conditions are right, but that He has moved in, at cost, permanently, and that the moving in got closer at every stage rather than further away.
So if you have been waiting for a moment where the glory shows up, that is worth reconsidering. Exodus has it filling a tent. Ezekiel has it leaving a building. John has it eating with people. Paul has it living in them. The direction of travel across the whole Bible is toward you, and it has already arrived.
For related ground, see the ark of the covenant, the throne room and the temple, the new covenant and what the Kingdom of God is.
Shekinah is not a Bible word, the idea is everywhere, and the story runs from a tent nobody could enter to a Spirit who lives in you.
That is a common thing to carry quietly and it is worth saying out loud to somebody. Send it here and somebody at Sound of Heaven will pray over it. You do not have to be a member and you do not have to word it well.
The word Shekinah does not appear anywhere in the Bible. It is a later Hebrew term built from the verb shakan, meaning to dwell or settle, coined by Jewish teachers to speak about God's settled presence without using language that made God sound physical. The word is not biblical, but the idea is on almost every page. Scripture has a full vocabulary for God's weight, His dwelling and His visible presence, and the thread runs from the tabernacle to a person to the church.
No. It comes from rabbinic Hebrew rather than from Scripture itself. What is in the Bible is the root behind it, shakan, meaning to settle or take up residence rather than to visit, and the related noun mishkan, which is the Hebrew name for the tabernacle and literally means the dwelling place. So the concept is thoroughly biblical even though the term is a later coinage.
The word is kavod, and its root sense is heaviness or weight. Glory in Hebrew is not brightness first, it is substance, the felt reality of who God is. That is why people in Scripture react to it physically rather than aesthetically. In Exodus 40 the glory fills the tabernacle and Moses cannot enter, and when Solomon finishes the temple the priests cannot stand to perform their service.
Yes, and Ezekiel watches it happen. In a vision while he is in exile and Jerusalem is still standing, he sees the glory rise from the inner sanctuary, pause at the threshold, move to the east gate and finally go up from the city and stop on the mountain east of it, which is the Mount of Olives. It leaves slowly and in stages, like something reluctant, and then the building is just a building.
In people. John 1:14 says the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and the Greek word there is skenoo, meaning to pitch a tent, from the same root as the word the Greek Old Testament uses for the tabernacle. Then Paul asks the Corinthians whether they do not know that they themselves are God's temple and that His Spirit dwells among them. The trajectory runs from something you had to stand outside of, to someone you could talk to, to something God placed inside you.