Numbers 9:19

19 And when the cloud prolonged on the tabernacle many days the {Israelites} kept the kept requirement of Yahweh 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 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.

20 When the cloud {remained} a number of days on the tabernacle, on the {command of Yahweh} they encamped; and on the {command of Yahweh} they set out.

21 When the cloud {remained} from evening until morning, and the cloud lifted up in the morning, they would set out, or [if it remained] in the daytime and [at] night, [when] the cloud lifted up they set out.

Footnotes

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