Jesus The True Shekinah Glory

Shekinah glory represents the motif of God’s dwelling on earth. It is the ‘tabernacling’ of God with his people. The Synoptic transfiguration accounts (Matt 17.4; Mark 9.5; Luke 9.33) denote the literal “tents” that Peter desires to build on the mountain. Acts 7:44 signifies the wilderness tent as the “tabernacle of the testimony” (skéné you martyriou). For elaborating on the heavenly * Hebrews 8:2 denotes it as “true tent-dwelling” (tes skénes t&s aléthings) and 9:11 illustrates it as a “perfect tent-dwelling” (teleioteras skéngs) of God. It is important to differentiate this concept from the Greek verb oikeo (Rom 8:9) which represents the notion of God’s dwelling within the believer. Thus the later concept differs markedly from the former even though it also connects the “hope of glory” with “Christ in us” (Col. 1:27; cf. John 14:23),

The verb Shakan was often used in the Hebrew scripture to denote the indwelling presence of God. Thus, it was the primary word for the abiding presence of God over the Ark of the Covenant or the dwelling of God in locations like the Holy of Holies, or Mount Sinai. Famous scholar Jorg Frey notices that “the Hebrew abstract noun [Shekinah] is only attested after 70 CE, when the Shekinah becomes a technical term in Rabbinic theology and in the Targums” (Frey, “God’s Dwelling on Earth,” 87). The word as such does not appear in the Hebrew Old Testament. It is thought to be derived from the Hebrew root verb shakan (“to dwell” or “abide” (Miller. Zechariah and Jewish Renewal). During the Middle Ages, Jewish scholars associated Shekinah with light and glory. The famous Talmudic scholar, Judah ben Barzillai al-Bargeloni of Barcelona, who lived 11th-century AD, commented that “[the] great light is called the Glory of our God… And the Sages call this great light Shekinah” (Scholem. The Mystical Shape of the Godhead, 155). In= John 21:24 one can see the attestation of the Beloved

ALEPH – 2023

Warden, Men’s Hostel Disciple, the tradition-bearer, who witnessed the Shekinah glory, introduced himself as “the one who has written this” (21.24). Also “glory is the visible manifestation of who God is, reflected in the earthly life of Jesus” (Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, 49). It was the fulfillment of the promise given to David “T will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel” (1Kings 6:13). Actually the erection of the ‘tabernacle’ was commanded so that Yahweh will “dwell among them” (Exo 25:8).

It is narrated in the Fourth Gospel that because of Jesus’s growing influence on the Jewish community, the chief priests and Pharisees were distressed and send officers to arrest Jesus (John 7:32). But the officers returned empty-handed. When the Pharisees asked why, the officers responded, “No one ever spoke like this man” (John 7:46). When the temple police said this, they were not referring to Jesus’ accent or his vocabulary but explicitly explain the expression of divinity.

I cannot, in the present article, enter into a wider discussion about the Shekinah glory and its interpretative problems. In my view the Prologue in the Fourth Gospel, in its present form, is deliberately designed to present Jesus as the “indwelling glory of God” (Immanuel) and provides major clues for the interpretation of the subsequent Gospel story. Within the larger framework of
such a reconstruction, the meaning Shekinah can be outlined as follows

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