Numbers 10:34

And the cloud of the LORD was upon them by day, when they went out of the camp.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Numbers 10:34. By day — And by night too, as was expressed before. So we must learn to compare places of Scripture, and to supply the defects of one out of another, as we do in all authors.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:33-36 Their going out and coming in, gives an example to us to begin and end every day's journey and every day's work with prayer. Here is Moses's prayer when the ark set forward, Rise up, and let thine enemies be scattered. There are those in the world who are enemies to God and haters of him; secret and open enemies; enemies to his truths, his laws, his ordinances, his people. But for the scattering and defeating of God's enemies, there needs no more than God's arising. Observe also the prayer of Moses when the ark rested, that God would cause his people to rest. The welfare and happiness of the Israel of God, consist in the continual presence of God among them. Their safety is not in their numbers, but in the favour of God, and his gracious return to them, and resting with them. Upon this account, Happy art thou, O Israel! who is like unto thee, O people! God will go before them, to find them resting-places by the way. His promise is, and their prayers are, that he will never leave them nor forsake them.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Three days' journey - Probably a technical expression for such a distance as could not be traversed in a single day, and therefore not without intervals of encampment and due provision: compare Genesis 30:36; Exodus 3:18; Exodus 5:3; Exodus 8:27; Exodus 15:22. The technical use of the phrase "Sabbath-day's journey" for another average distance, Acts 1:12, is similar.

The ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them - From Numbers 10:21; Numbers 2:17 it would appear that the usual place of the ark during the march was in the midst of the host. It was evidently an exceptional case when, in Joshua 3:3, Joshua 3:6, the ark preceded the people into the bed of the Jordan. Hence, the words "went before them" do not here imply local precedence. The phrase, or its equivalent, is used of a leader going out in command of his troops, Numbers 27:17; Deuteronomy 31:3; 1 Samuel 18:16; 2 Chronicles 1:10; and similarly the ark may well be said to have gone at the head of the Israelites, when it was borne solemnly in the midst of them as the outward embodiment of the presence whose sovereign word was their law.

A resting place - literally, "rest." It is commonly understood of each successive encampment; or, in particular, of the first encampment. Yet the term would hardly be here employed, did it not carry with it a higher meaning, pointing to the promised rest of Canaan, for which the Israelites were now in full march, and from the speedy enjoyment of which no sentence of exclusion as yet debarred them. Compare the marginal references.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

33. they departed … three days' journey—the first day's progress being very small, about eighteen or twenty miles.

ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them—It was carried in the center, and hence some eminent commentators think the passage should be rendered, "the ark went in their presence," the cloud above upon it being conspicuous in their eyes. But it is probable that the cloudy pillar, which, while stationary, rested upon the ark, preceded them in the march—as, when in motion at one time (Ex 14:19) it is expressly said to have shifted its place.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

And by night too, as was expressed before. So we must learn to compare places of Scripture, and to supply the defects of one out of another, as we do in all authors.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the cloud of the Lord was upon them by day,.... Not only upon the tabernacle, and upon the ark particularly, but it spread itself in journeying over the whole body of the people, and therefore said to be a covering to them from the heat of the sun, Psalm 105:39; as well as it was a guide unto them, and a token of the divine Presence with them, see Isaiah 4:5,

when they went out of the camp; or out of the place of their encampment, when they removed from Sinai; and appears from, hence that it was in the daytime.

Geneva Study Bible

And the cloud of the LORD was upon them by day, when they went out of the camp.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

34. the cloud of Jehovah was over them] This appears to mean ‘over the Tabernacle’ as it was carried in the line of march, in which case the passage is from P and is the continuation of Numbers 10:28. The expression ‘cloud of Jehovah’ occurs elsewhere only in Exodus 40:38 (P ), but that is perhaps a wrong reading for ‘the cloud was’ (יִהְיֶה). See below on Numbers 14:14.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 34. - The cloud of the Lord was upon them by day. It would seem as if the cloud, which was luminous by night, dense and dark by day, spread itself upwards and backwards from over the ark, overshadowing the host as it followed - a refreshment at any rate to those who were near, perhaps to all, and a guiding beacon to those who were afar. To what extent the people at large were able to enjoy this shade amidst the burning heats of the desert we cannot possibly tell, but there is no doubt that it dwelt in the memory of the nation, and gave meaning to such expressions as the "shadow of the Almighty" (Psalm 91:1), and "the shadow of a cloud" (Isaiah 25:4, 5). Numbers 10:34

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"And they (the Israelites) departed from the mount of Jehovah (Exodus 3:1) three days' journey; the ark of the covenant of Jehovah going before them, to search out a resting-place for them. And the cloud of Jehovah was over them by day, when they broke up from the camp." Jehovah still did as He had already done on the way to Sinai (Exodus 13:21-22): He went before them in the pillar of cloud, according to His promise (Exodus 33:13), on their journey from Sinai to Canaan; with this simple difference, however, that henceforth the cloud that embodied the presence of Jehovah was connected with the ark of the covenant, as the visible throne of His gracious presence which had been appointed by Jehovah Himself. To this end the ark of the covenant was carried separately from the rest of the sacred things, in front of the whole army; so that the cloud which went before them floated above the ark, leading the procession, and regulating its movements in the direction it took in such a manner that the permanent connection between the cloud and the sanctuary might be visibly manifested even during their march. It is true that, in the order observed in the camp and on the march, no mention is made of the ark of the covenant going in front of the whole army; but this omission is no more a proof of any discrepancy between this verse and Numbers 2:17, or of a difference of authorship, than the separation of the different divisions of the Levites upon the march, which is also not mentioned in Numbers 2:17, although the Gershonites and Merarites actually marched between the banners of Judah and Reuben, and the Kohathites with the holy things between the banners of Reuben and Ephraim (Numbers 10:17 and Numbers 10:21).

(Note: As the critics do not deny that vv. 11-28 are written by the "Elohist" notwithstanding this difference, they have no right to bring forward the account of the ark going first as a contradiction to ch. 2, and therefore a proof that Numbers 10:33. are not of Elohistic origin.)

The words, "the cloud was above them" (the Israelites), and so forth, can be reconciled with this supposition without any difficulty, whether we understand them as signifying that the cloud, which appeared as a guiding column floating above the ark and moved forward along with it, also extended itself along the whole procession, and spread out as a protecting shade over the whole army (as O. v. Gerlach and Baumgarten suppose), or that "above them" (upon them) is to be regarded as expressive of the fact that it accompanied them as a protection and shade. Nor is Psalm 105:39, which seems, so far as the words are concerned, rather to favour the first explanation, really at variance with this view; for the Psalmist's intention is not so much to give a physical description of the phenomenon, as to describe the sheltering protection of God in poetical words as a spreading out of the cloud above the wandering people of God, in the form of a protection against both heat and rain (cf. Isaiah 4:5-6). Moreover, Numbers 10:33 and Numbers 10:34 have a poetical character, answering to the elevated nature of their subject, and are to be interpreted as follows according to the laws of a poetical parallelism: The one thought that the ark of the covenant, with the cloud soaring above it, led the way and sheltered those who were marching, is divided into two clauses; in Numbers 10:33 only the ark of the covenant is mentioned as going in front of the Israelites, and in Numbers 10:34 only the cloud as a shelter over them: whereas the carrying of the ark in front of the army could only accomplish the end proposed, viz., to search out a resting-place for them, by Jehovah going above them in the cloud, and showing the bearers of the ark both the way they were to take, and the place where they were to rest. The ark with the tables of the law is not called "the ark of testimony" here, according to its contents, as in Exodus 25:22; Exodus 26:33-34; Exodus 30:6, etc., but the ark of the covenant of Jehovah, according to its design and signification for Israel, which was the only point, or at any rate the principal point, in consideration here. The resting-place which the ark of the covenant found at the end of three days, is not mentioned in Numbers 10:34; it was not Tabeerah, however (Numbers 11:3), but Kibroth-hattaavah (Numbers 11:34-35; cf. Numbers 33:16).