Bible Strands
Numbers 10:11
On the twentieth day of the second month of the second year, the cloud was lifted from above the tabernacle of the Testimony,
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The narrator records the camp's departure at the conclusion of the tabernacle's consecration and the trumpet regulations. This occurs on the twentieth day of the second month of the second year after the exodus, marking the transition from stationary preparation to mobile travel.
The words — The text highlights נַעֲלָה (na'alah), rendered literally as "it was taken up" or "it was lifted," describing the cloud's vertical ascent. This verb functions as the mechanical trigger for the subsequent military and tribal march.
The thread — The precise chronology ties this event to the tabernacle's erection on the first day of the first month of the second year (Exodus 40:17) and the preceding census (Numbers 1:1). The cloud's eventual rest in the Wilderness of Paran extends this geographic sequence (Numbers 10:12).
Why it lands — The verse requires tracking the exact interval between divine instruction and physical obedience. Readers must note that the community's movement is strictly bound to a recorded timeline rather than spontaneous action.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And it came to pass on the twentieth day of the second month, in the second year, that the cloud was taken up from off the tabernacle of the testimony.
Cross-references
- Exodus 40:2 “On the first day of the first month you are to set up the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting.
- Exodus 40:17 So the tabernacle was set up on the first day of the first month of the second year.
- Numbers 1:1 On the first day of the second month of the second year after the Israelites had come out of the land of Egypt, the LORD spoke to Moses in the Tent of Meeting in the Wilderness of Sinai. He said:
- Numbers 9:1 In the first month of the second year after Israel had come out of the land of Egypt, the LORD spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai:
- Numbers 9:5 and they did so in the Wilderness of Sinai, at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month. The Israelites did everything just as the LORD had commanded Moses.
- Numbers 9:11 Such people are to observe it at twilight on the fourteenth day of the second month. They are to eat the lamb, together with unleavened bread and bitter herbs;
- Numbers 9:17 Whenever the cloud was lifted from above the Tent, the Israelites would set out, and wherever the cloud settled, there the Israelites would camp.