Ezekiel 11:23 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city The symbol of God's presence, which had before departed from the temple, (Ezekiel 10:18,) now quite left the city, to signify that he would acknowledge no longer his relation to either, but deliver them up to be profaned by the heathen. It deserves to be observed here, that God did not quit the temple and city all at once, but by little and little. The cloud of his presence was first withdrawn from the mercy-seat in the holy of holies, the usual place of its residence, and removed to the threshold of the house, (Ezekiel 9:1,) where it remained some time waiting for their repentance. Its second remove was from this threshold, leaving the house altogether, to settle upon the cherubim, which were hovering over the court, and upon the wing to depart, Ezekiel 10:18. It then, with these angelic ministers of the divine will, and the accompanying wheels of providence, withdrew to the east gate of the inner court, Ezekiel 10:19. And now at last it quits Jerusalem altogether, and fixes itself upon the mountain on the east side of the city. By withdrawing himself from his people by slow degrees, God gave them time for consideration and repentance, to which each remove of the Shechinah was a fresh and solemn call, and he thus also manifested with what reluctance he entirely abandoned the seed of Abraham his friend. And even his causing the symbol of his presence, before his final departure, to take its station on the mount of Olives, where it was, as it were, within call, and ready to return, if now at length in this their day they would have understood the things that made for their peace, was a further manifestation of grace as well as of justice; for while the cloud of glory lingered there, it gave fresh encouragement to them to repent, and a final warning so to do, at the same time that it was emblematical of the judgment which, if their repentance did not prevent, should begin to be executed upon them from that mount, from whence the city would be annoyed by the darts of the Chaldeans. Nor was this only a figure of the calamities which were to be brought on the Jews by Nebuchadnezzar, but it was also an emblem of the evils which were to befall them in consequence of their rejecting and crucifying their own Messiah, the Lord of glory. This Divine Saviour, after exhausting his patience in instructing, correcting, and threatening Jerusalem, at length forsook it, and ascended to heaven from this same mount of Olives, in the presence of his apostles and disciples, that he might exercise his kingly office, and inflict a just and exemplary vengeance on this obstinately wicked and irreclaimable people.