Numbers 9:17

17 [Whenever] the cloud lifted up from on the tent, after that the {Israelites} would set out, and in the place where the cloud dwelled, there the {Israelites} camped.

Numbers 9:17 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 9:17

And when the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle
Or went up from it, higher than it was before, yet not out of sight, but hung as it were hovering in the air over the tabernacle, but at some distance from it; this was done by the Lord himself:

then after that the children of Israel journeyed;
as soon as they saw the cloud moving upwards, the Levites took down the tabernacle, and each took their post assigned them in the carriage of it, and the priests blew their trumpets mentioned in ( Numbers 10:2 Numbers 10:4 Numbers 10:8-10 ) , and the whole camp moved and marched on in their journey:

and in the place where the cloud abode, there the children of Israel
pitched their tents;
when it stopped and remained without any motion, it was a signal to the children of Israel to stop also, and to set up the tabernacle, and pitch their tents about it by their standards, and according to the order of encampment which had been given them.

Numbers 9:17 In-Context

15 And on a day setting up the tabernacle, the cloud covered the tent of the tabernacle, the tent of the testimony; in the evening it was on the tabernacle as an appearance of fire until morning.

16 So it was continually; the cloud would cover it and the appearance of fire [by] night.

17 [Whenever] the cloud lifted up from on the tent, after that the {Israelites} would set out, and in the place where the cloud dwelled, there the {Israelites} camped.

18 On the {command of Yahweh} the {Israelites} would set out, and on the {command of Yahweh} they encamped; all the days that the cloud dwelled on the tabernacle they encamped.

19 And when the cloud prolonged on the tabernacle many days the {Israelites} kept the kept requirement of Yahweh and did not set out.

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "sons/children of Israel"
• [b]. Literally "sons/children of Israel"