Numbers 11:24

Was the tabernacle outside the camp of Israel or inside it?

PROBLEM: Numbers 2 places the tabernacle inside the camp, but here in Numbers 11:24 (cf. 12:4) it is said to be outside the camp.

SOLUTION: It was both. The twelve tribes were camped around the tabernacle (Numbers 2:3; Numbers 2:10; Numbers 2:18; Numbers 2:25), with a space between them and the tabernacle in the center (Numbers 2:2). Hence, to get to the tabernacle they would have to go “outside” their camping area. And yet the tabernacle was literally “in the middle” of them.