Numbers 9:19

19 Even when the cloud stayed over the tabernacle many days, the Israelites carried out the Lord's requirement and did not set out.

Numbers 9:19 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 9:19

And when the cloud tarried long upon the tabernacle many
days
Or years, for days are sometimes put for years, and in some places the cloud tarried several years; or however, if it stayed but a month or a year in any place, as in ( Numbers 9:22 ) ;

then the children of Israel kept the charge of the Lord, and journeyed
not;
they not only kept watching when it would move, or set sentinels for that purpose to observe it, but they kept the charge, order, or commandment, which the tarrying of the cloud was a token of, and did not attempt to proceed in their journey until they had an intimation so to do by its motion; and all this while, likewise, the tabernacle being up, they observed all the precepts and ordinances of the Lord in the service of it.

Numbers 9:19 In-Context

17 Whenever the cloud was lifted up above the tent, the Israelites would set out; at the place where the cloud stopped, there the Israelites camped.

18 At the Lord's command the Israelites set out, and at the Lord's command they camped. As long as the cloud stayed over the tabernacle, they camped.

19 Even when the cloud stayed over the tabernacle many days, the Israelites carried out the Lord's requirement and did not set out.

20 Sometimes the cloud remained over the tabernacle for [only] a few days. They would camp at the Lord's command and set out at the Lord's command.

21 Sometimes the cloud remained [only] from evening until morning; when the cloud lifted in the morning, they set out. Or if it remained a day and a night, they moved out when the cloud lifted.