Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

9:15-23 The Moving Cloud. The cloud of God's presence had led the people out of Egypt to Mount Sinai (Ex. 13:21-22; 19:9, 16). This hymn-like passage celebrates the relationship between God and Israel (or at least what that relationship was like when Israel was in an obedient mood). Wherever and whenever the cloud moved, the people followed. At the command of the Lord they camped, and at the command of the Lord they set out (Num. 9:23). The people had to be ready for immediate departure on any day, and they had to follow the Lord every day until the cloud stopped--which required continual obedience to God's visible guidance. (Notice, however, the disobedience of the people in Num. 14:1-4, when they refuse to "set out" to Canaan, and the disastrous consequences of their disobedience as seen in 14:11-45. But ch. 11 already shows that the people were not as full of faith as they should have been.)