Thus Jehovah in the most public and formal manner forsook and withdrew from the temple, and terminated the theocracy; the procedure being attended by visible exhibitions, and verbal explanations and announcements intelligible to Ezekiel, and adapted to qualify him to vindicate it to the captives, and to forewarn them of the inflictions and desolations which were to follow. Accordingly, neither the Shekina nor any tokens of the Divine presence there afterwards appeared. When the structure was demolished by the Chaldeans, the altar and all the interior furniture was destroyed or removed, and never again recovered. In the new erection under Cyrus, when dedicated, and ever after, the ark of the covenant and the mercy-seat upon it, the Shekina, the Urim and Thummim, the holy fire upon the altar, and the spirit of prophecy, were irrecoverably wanting. The construction which was substituted for the original ark had neither the tables of the law nor any of its other contents, nor any visible glory over it, nor oracles proceeding from it. The Divine presence, always before visible in a cloud over the mercy-seat, returned no more. An imitation altar was erected, but the fire which came down from heaven upon the altar in the tabernacle, and again at the dedication of the first temple, had been extinguished, and was not again restored. Jehovah, officially, as prophet, priest, and king, had withdrawn, not to reäppear till he should come, the Messenger of the Covenant, in fulfilment of Malachi's prediction. The new structure therefore was, at least to all but those whose worship was purely and eminently spiritual, a cold, cheerless, and dark arena of formal and wearisome rites and ceremonies; a lifeless round of irksome forms, without any visible tokens of the Divine presence, or of Divine recognition or acceptance; any oracular responses, any fire from heaven, or other vindications, confirmations, or sanctions of the doctrines or faith professed or signified by the services and offerings of the worshippers. Hence the degeneracy, formalism, and hypocrisy which subsequently characterized the temple worship, as recorded by Malachi and his contemporaries, and in the later history of the Jews down to our Saviour's time; their separation into discordant sects; the renunciation by the mass of them of the divine Mediator and the doctrine of Mediation, and their adoption exclusively of the doctrine of the UNITY, as held by them to this day; and the necessity, in order to the maintenance among the true worshippers of the doctrines and faith of the patriarchs and prophets, of providing and perpetuating in their vulgar tongue such expositions as were furnished by the Chaldee paraphrasts.