‘Then the cherubim lifted up their wings and the wheels were beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above. And the glory of Yahweh went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain which is on the east of the city.'
Having made His declarations the chariot of Yahweh, with the glory of Yahweh on it, left the city for the mountain to the east of the city. Later when His glory will return to the temple it will be the east from which it comes (Ezekiel 43:1-4). The appearance on the mountain east of the city was to be the last time that it was seen in this generation. Yahweh had departed and would come no more until His future day arrived. So Yahweh had moved, deliberately and certainly, from the holy of holies to the threshold of the temple (Ezekiel 10:4), from the threshold of the temple to the door at the east gate of Yahweh's house (Ezekiel 10:19), and from there to the mountain to the east of the city (Ezekiel 11:23), revealing iniquity on the way and pronouncing His judgments.
There may be in the eastern movement the thought of His eastward departure towards Babylon, (otherwise He would surely have returned to the north - Ezekiel 1:4) but there is no direct suggestion of it, or it may simply have been intended as a a mysterious disappearance from the Mount of Olives, to which He would one day return (Zechariah 14:4). Jewish tradition later saw Him as waiting there to see if the city would repent, but again there is no hint of it in the passage. We are probably best to see it as simply indicating that the glory of Yahweh then disappeared for the last time having abandoned the city to its fate. The central idea was that Yahweh and the city were no longer associated.
It may well be significant that Jesus too ascended from the mount of Olives, by Bethany, (Luke 24:50-51; Acts 1:6-11) and disappeared heavenward, as Jerusalem and the temple were again abandoned by God.