Bible Strands
Numbers 10:12
and the Israelites set out from the Wilderness of Sinai, traveling from place to place until the cloud settled in the Wilderness of Paran.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator records the Israelites departing the Wilderness of Sinai immediately after the cloud lifts from the tabernacle on the twentieth day of the second month of the second year.
The words — The verb וַיִּסְעוּ (va.yisū) literally means "and they set out," linked to לְמַסְעֵיהֶם (lemaśeêhem), "to their journeyings" or designated stages. The passage closes with וַיִּשְׁכֹּן (va.yiškōn), "and it settled," describing the cloud's final resting place.
The thread — This movement to the Wilderness of Paran aligns with the later camp relocation in Numbers 12:16 and matches the geographic marker already established in Genesis 21:21.
Why it lands — The text demands precise attention to the Israelites' staged progress and the cloud's function as the visible marker of their divinely directed route.
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 the children of Israel took their journeys out of the wilderness of Sinai; and the cloud rested in the wilderness of Paran.
Cross-references
- Genesis 21:21 And while he was dwelling in the Wilderness of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
- Numbers 12:16 After that, the people set out from Hazeroth and camped in the Wilderness of Paran.
- Exodus 19:1 In the third month, on the same day of the month that the Israelites had left the land of Egypt, they came to the Wilderness of Sinai.
- Exodus 40:36 Whenever the cloud was lifted from above the tabernacle, the Israelites would set out through all the stages of their journey.
- 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 9:5 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 13:3 So at the command of the LORD, Moses sent them out from the Wilderness of Paran. All the men were leaders of the Israelites,
- Numbers 13:26 and they went back to Moses, Aaron, and the whole congregation of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They brought back a report for the whole congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.
- Deuteronomy 1:1 These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel in the wilderness east of the Jordan—in the Arabah opposite Suph—between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.
- Exodus 13:20 They set out from Succoth and camped at Etham on the edge of the wilderness.