Numbers 9:22

15-23 This cloud was appointed to be the visible sign and symbol of God's presence with Israel. Thus we are taught to see God always near us, both night and day. As long as the cloud rested on the tabernacle, so long they continued in the same place. There is no time lost, while we are waiting God's time. When the cloud was taken up, they removed, however comfortably they were encamped. We are kept at uncertainty concerning the time of our putting off the earthly house of this tabernacle, that we may be always ready to remove at the command of the Lord. It is very safe and pleasant going when we see God before us, and resting where he appoints us to rest. The leading of this cloud is spoken of as signifying the guidance of the blessed Spirit. We are not now to expect such tokens of the Divine presence and guidance; but the promise is sure to all God's spiritual Israel, that he will guid...

Verse Numbers 9:22. _TWO DAYS - A MONTH - A YEAR_] It was by the Divine counsel alone that they were directed in all their peregrinations: and from the above words we see that their _times of tarrying_ at different stations were very unequal....

A YEAR - literally, “days,” idiomatically a year Leviticus 25:29, an expression equivalent to “a full period,” though not necessarily the period of a year....

EXPOSITION THE SIGNALS OF GOD (Numbers 9:15-4). NUMBERS 9:15 ON THE DAY THAT THE TABERNACLE WAS REARED UP. Here we are sent back again to _the _great day of Israel's sojourn at Sinai, when God took visible possession of his dwelling in the midst of them (Exodus 40:34). Everything after that was but preparatory to the approaching departure, and therefore is narrated not in any order of time, but either as it referred back to the first day of the first month, or forward to the twentieth day of the second month. The cloud covered the tabernacle, namely, the tent of the testimony....

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 g; some say h 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 s...

Numbers 9:1. _And the LORD spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying, Let the children of Israel also keep the passover at his appointed season._ I should almost fear that they had omitted the keeping of the passover for a year. There was a first celebration of it when they came out of Egypt; but then it was not so much a type as a matter of fact; it was the thing itself, not the remembrance of the coming out of Egypt, but the actual coming out, the exodus. One would gather from this command of the Lord that, on the first anniversary of that memorable season, the children of Israel had omitted its observance, and hence Jehovah said to Moses, «Let the children of Israel also keep the passover at his appointed season.» If this conjecture is correct, it is very significant that a rite which be

7. PASSOVER AND JEHOVAH WITH HIS PEOPLE CHAPTER 9 _ 1. The command to keep the Passover (Numbers 9:1)_ 2. The Passover kept (Numbers 9:4) 3. Provision in case of defilement (Numbers 9:6) 4. Jehovah with His people (Numbers 9:15) Jehovah next commands His people to keep the feast of redemption, Passover. And they obeyed at once. The first Passover was held in Egypt, the second in the wilderness at Sinai, with their faces turned towards the land of promise, and it was next celebrated in the land of Canaan. This shows how essential the blood is for everything. The blood delivers out of Egypt, it keeps in

THE MOVEMENT OF THE CAMP DETERMINED BY THE FIERY CLOUD. Since according to P the Tabernacle was in the centre of the camp when it was stationary, and in the midst of the column when it was on the march (Numbers 2:17; Numbers 10:21), the setting or rising of the cloud above it only gave the signal for encamping or for breaking up the camp: the direction of the march was conveyed from Yahweh through Moses (Numbers 10:13). The view of the writer of Numbers 10:33 * is quite different. The conception of the cloud as fiery (Numbers 9:15) maintains the idea o

ABODE. Compare Exodus 40:34....

DISCOURSE: 147 THE JOURNEYS OF ISRAEL REGULATED BY GOD Numbers 9:21. _So if was, when the cloud abode from even unto the morning, and that the cloud was taken up in the morning, then they journeyed: whether it was by day or by night that the cloud was taken up, they journeyed. Or whether it were two days, or a month, or a year, that the cloud tarried upon the tabernacle, remaining thereon, the children of Israel abode in their tents, and journeyed not; but when it was taken up, they journeyed. At the commandment of the Lord they rested in their tents, and at the commandment of the Lord they journeyed: they kept the charge of the Lord, at the commandment of the Lord by the hand of Moses._ The conducting of Israel in the wilderness by a pillar and a cloud is often mentioned in the Holy Scriptures; but in no place so fully as here. From the fifteenth verse to the end of thi