“The Israelites are to camp around the Tent of Meeting at a distance from it, each man under his standard, with the banners of his family.
Here is the general appointment given both for their orderly encampment where they rested and their orderly march when they moved. Some order, it is possible, they had observed hitherto; they came out of Egypt in rank and file (Exo 13:18), but now they were put into a better model. 1.
Commenting on Numbers 2:1-2
Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard,.... Or banner, of which there were four, as appears from the following account, under each of which were placed three tribes; and so every man of each tribe was to pitch his tent in the tribe he belonged to, and by the standard under which his tribe was marshalled, and in the...
Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensign of their father's house: far off about the tabernacle of the congregation shall they pitch. (a) In the twelve tribes were four principle standards, so that every three tribes had their standard.