Numbers 10:11

11 And it cometh to pass -- in the second year, in the second month, in the twentieth of the month -- the cloud hath gone up from off the tabernacle of the testimony,

Numbers 10:11 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 10:11

And it came to pass, on the twentieth [day] of the second
month, in the second year
Which was the twentieth of the month Ijar, in the second year of the coming of the Israelites out of Egypt; who, as it appears from hence, compared with ( Exodus 19:1 ) ; had been in the wilderness of Sinai twelve months wanting ten days; so Jarchi and other Jewish writers ^F13, with whom Aben Ezra agrees, who says it was near a year:

that the cloud was taken up from off the tabernacle of the testimony;
that part of the tabernacle where the ark of the testimony stood, even the most holy place, over which the cloud was, the token of the divine Presence, and which it covered; but now was taken up from it, and went up higher above it, and was a signal for the motion of the camps of Israel to set forward in their journey towards Canaan's land.

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FOOTNOTES:

F13 Seder Olam Rabba, c. 8. p. 23. Abarbinel

Numbers 10:11 In-Context

9 `And when ye go into battle in your land against the adversary who is distressing you, then ye have shouted with the trumpets, and ye have been remembered before Jehovah your God, and ye have been saved from your enemies.

10 `And in the day of your gladness, and in your appointed seasons, and in the beginnings of your months, ye have blown also with the trumpets over your burnt-offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace-offerings, and they have been to you for a memorial before your God; I, Jehovah, [am] your God.'

11 And it cometh to pass -- in the second year, in the second month, in the twentieth of the month -- the cloud hath gone up from off the tabernacle of the testimony,

12 and the sons of Israel journey in their journeyings from the wilderness of Sinai, and the cloud doth tabernacle in the wilderness of Paran;

13 and they journey at first, by the command of Jehovah, in the hand of Moses.