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VAH OF HOSTS WILL REIGN ON MOUNT ZION AND IN JERUSALEM, and His
glory ["Shekinah" presence] will be before His elders...For behold, YEHOVAH IS
ABOUT TO COME OUT FROM HIS PLACE to punish the inhabitants of the earth for
their iniquity; and the earth will reveal her bloodshed, and will no longer cover her slain
(Isaiah 24, selected verses).

The prophets were thinking back to the time of Moses and the unprecedented events at
Mount Sinai, when God dramatically judged the nation of Egypt and freed the Israelites from slav-
ery. There, at Mt. Sinai, all Israel experienced the awesome, visible, dramatic, manifestation of the
Presence (literally, "face") and GLORY OF YEHOVAH. Explains James Tabor, "The Torah is
most explicit regarding this unprecedented experience. Nothing like this had ever happened before,
or has happened since. YEHOVAH Himself appeared to the people in a fiery cloud-like pillar;
they actually heard His voice and saw His Glory (Exodus 19:18-19; 20:18-21; 40:34-38; Numbers
14:14). The very purpose of the Tabernacle (literally, "dwelling place") was to provide a locus
for this extraordinary manifestation of YEHOVAH" (The LORD (YHVH) God and His
Messiah).

We have seen Ezekiel report that this Presence ("Glory") of YEHOVAH departed shortly
before the Exile. Ezekiel understood this in the most LITERAL way -- actually describing the
cloud-like "Shekinah" moving through the Eastern Gate of Jerusalem, up the Mount of Olives, and
away (Ezekiel 10:18-19; 11:22-23). In Deuteronomy 31:17 this "departure" is called the "hiding of
the Face of YEHOVAH." To fully understand this teaching of Scripture, I have endeavored to
show the DISTINCTION between the general presence of God (which is always with His crea-
tion) and this VERY SPECIFIC, literal, awesome, visible, manifestation of the Divine Glory or
"Shekinah."

In that sense God departed from this planet, and in that sense all the prophets (including
John) tell of His return. In other words, they clearly point to and predict a visible, earthshaking,
LITERAL, manifestation of the holy "Shekinah" (Glory of YEHOVAH) once again. For the right-
eous this will bring great rejoicing, but for all the wicked this will cause terror and the fear of
judgment.

I have also tried to point out that the Scriptures show a definite focus on the EAST. On the
EAST side of Jerusalem is the EASTERN gate of the Temple Mount, and EAST of that gate -- the
Mount of Olives. From this sacred area the holy "Shekinah" (Glory of YEHOVAH) departed, and
it is HERE that it will return. This clearly connects to the passage in Zechariah that predicts "on
that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives" (14:4).

This area -- EAST from the Temple Mount and including the Mount of Olives -- is evi-
dently the El Bethel (not the northern town of Bethel) where the patriarch Jacob had his vision of
the ladder going up to heaven. He identified this place as awesome and sacred, and none other than
the portal or "gate of heaven." Evidently Jacob was lying on the Temple Mount area and facing
EAST, looking in his dream at the summit of the Mount of Olives (Genesis 28:17; 35:5-8).

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