Numbers 9:20 (BSB)

Sometimes the cloud remained over the tabernacle for only a few days, and they would camp at the LORD’s command and set out at the LORD’s command.

From Numbers 9. Also in the ESV.

Commentary on Numbers 9:20

• Matthew Henry (Presbyterian), Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on Numbers 9:15-23: We have here the history of the cloud; not a natural history: who knows the balancings of the clouds? but a divine history of a cloud that was appointed to be the visible sign and symbol of God's presence with Israel. I.
• John Gill (Reformed Baptist), Exposition of the Old and New Testaments on Numbers 9:20: And so it was when the cloud abode from even unto the morning,.... The whole night, during which time they rested in their beds: and that the cloud was taken up in the morning, then they journeyed; whether it was by day or night that the cloud was taken up, they journeyed; whether at morning or midnight; for sometimes, as Aben Ezra observes, they travelled...
• Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (Reformed), Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible on Numbers 9:15-23: A CLOUD GUIDES THE ISRAELITES. (Num 9:15-23) the cloud covered the tabernacle--The inspired historian here enters on an entirely new subject, which might properly have formed a separate chapter, beginning at this verse and ending at Num 10:29 [CALMET]. The cloud was a visible token of God's special presence and guardian care of the Israelites (Exo 14:20; Psa 105:39).
• Keil & Delitzsch (Lutheran), Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament on Numbers 9:19-23: Num 9:19-23 Whether it might rest many days long (האריך, to lengthen out the resting), or only a few days (Gen 34:30), or only from evening till morning, and then rise up again in the morning, or for a day and a night, or for two days, or for a month, or for days (yamim), i.e., a space of time not precisely determined (cf.