Ezekiel 8:4 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

The glory of the God of Israel was there. — Not the glory of the Lord filling the temple as in the days of old, but the glory “according to the vision that I saw in the plain” — i.e., the same vision which had before appeared to the prophet now in his vision — a vision within a vision — appeared to him again in the temple. The identity of the vision is again particularly mentioned in Ezekiel 10:15; Ezekiel 10:22, and even without this would be plain from the description given of it in Ezekiel 10. At the same time, various particulars are mentioned (as in Ezekiel 10:12) which were omitted in Ezekiel 1, and others are mentioned there which are omitted here, as the cloud and the firmament (Ezekiel 1:4; Ezekiel 1:22); and there are also some entirely new features introduced, as the “six men” and “the man clothed in linen” (Ezekiel 9:2), for which there was no occasion in the former vision. “The God of Israel” is emphatic, the God who had loved and chosen Israel, and Whom Israel should have served, in contrast with the idol which they had placed in His temple.