In Numbers, chapter nine, verses fifteen through twenty-three, the cloud by day and the fire by night served as a sign of divine provision, protection, and guidance for Israel in the wilderness. The Word of God emphasizes that the people were to move or stay only as the supernatural sign indicated. However, God’s guidance did not eliminate the need for human wisdom and planning, for Moses requested Hobab to advise them about the best places to camp in the wilderness in this chapter ten, verse twenty-nine. Obeying God and following His will depends on God’s supernatural guidance and wisdom based on the principles of His Word. The importance is to remain near Him at all times and not separate ourselves from His protection and will.
God’s promise to lead His people in the Old Testament still applies to believers. He will guide us by His Word and Spirit, as in Romans, chapter eight, verse four. He will direct the paths of all who acknowledge Him as in Proverbs three verse six, Psalms thirty-seven, verse twenty-three, Acts five, nineteen to twenty, chapter eight, verse twenty-six, chapter thirteen, verses one through four, respectively. Decisions to be made should have the input of God in them. He knows what lies ahead, and we do not know.
Numbers fifteen begins “on the day the tabernacle” was the first day of the first month in the second year of the people of Israel’s coming out of Egypt. “The cloud covered the tabernacle, namely, the tent of the testimony,” that part of the tabernacle is the testimony where the law rests. The testimony was the holiest place, and over the tent or covering of that was this cloud, which settled. “At even there was upon the tabernacle, as it were, the appearance of fire until the morning.” The same phenomenon, which looked like a cloud in the daytime, appeared like fire in the same place in the nighttime, throughout the whole of it until morning light, when it was seen as a cloud again: this was a token of the presence of God with the people of Israel, of his protection of them, and being a guide unto them by night and day, while in the wilderness; and was a figure of his being the same to his church and people, in the present state of things.