Numbers 9:22

22 It made no difference whether the Cloud hovered over The Dwelling for two days or a month or a year, as long as the Cloud was there, they were there. And when the Cloud went up, they got up and marched.

Numbers 9:22 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 9:22

Or [whether it were] two days, or a month, or a year, that
the cloud tarried upon the tabernacle
Sometimes it tarried but half a day, sometimes a whole day, sometimes two days, at other times a whole month, and even a year; a full year, as the Targum of Jonathan and Aben Ezra; or a longer time, as the Vulgate Latin version, for in one place it tarried eighteen years, as Maimonides says ^F7; some say

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FOOTNOTES:

F8 nineteen years, as in Kadeshbarnea:

remaining thereon, the children of Israel abode in their tents, and
journeyed not;
so that, as the same writer observes, it was not because the children of Israel lost their way in the wilderness and wandered about, not knowing where they were, or which way they should go; hence the Arabians call the wilderness, the wilderness of wandering, nor that they were so long wandering in it as forty years, but because it was the will of God that should stay so long at one place, and so long at another, whereby their stay in it was protracted to such a length of time, according to his sovereign will:

but when it was taken up they journeyed;
though they had continued ever so long, and their situation ever so agreeable.

F7 Moreh Nevoch. par. 2. c. 50. p. 512.
F8 Seder Olam Rabba, c. 8. p. 24.

Numbers 9:22 In-Context

20 They stayed in camp, obedient to God's command, as long as the Cloud was over The Dwelling, but the moment God issued orders they marched.

21 If the Cloud stayed only from sunset to daybreak and then lifted at daybreak, they marched. Night or day, it made no difference - when the Cloud lifted, they marched.

22 It made no difference whether the Cloud hovered over The Dwelling for two days or a month or a year, as long as the Cloud was there, they were there. And when the Cloud went up, they got up and marched.

23 They camped at God's command and they marched at God's command. They lived obediently by God's orders as delivered by Moses.