Numbers 9:21

21 If the cloud tarried from evening until morning, and immediately at break of day left the tabernacle, they marched forward: and if it departed after a day and a night, they took down their tents.

Numbers 9:21 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 9:21

And [so] it was when the cloud abode from even unto the
morning
The whole night, during which time they rested in their beds:

and [that] the cloud was taken up in the morning, then they journeyed;
whether [it was] by day or night that the cloud was taken up, they
journeyed;
whether at morning or midnight; for sometimes, as Aben Ezra observes, they travelled in the night; whensoever their sentinels gave notice that the cloud was taken up, even though at midnight, they arose and prepared for their journey; and by this it is evident, that the appearance by day and night was the same body called the cloud, though beheld in a different view, in the daytime as a cloud, in the nighttime as fire.

Numbers 9:21 In-Context

19 And if it was so that it continued over it a long time, the children of Israel kept the watches of the Lord, and marched not,

20 For as many days soever as the cloud stayed over the tabernacle. At the commandment of the Lord they pitched their tents, and at his commandment they took them down.

21 If the cloud tarried from evening until morning, and immediately at break of day left the tabernacle, they marched forward: and if it departed after a day and a night, they took down their tents.

22 But if it remained over the tabernacle for two days or a month or a longer time, the children of Israel remained in the same place, and marched not: but immediately as soon as it departed, they removed the camp.

23 By the word of the Lord they pitched their tents, and by his word they marched: and kept the watches of the Lord according to his commandment by the hand of Moses.