This week’s reading seems to be full of contradictions.
I’m going to look at just one of them, the cloud over the Tabernacle and how it guides the Israelites through the wilderness. Perhaps I should call it the Cloud with a capital C, because this is a Cloud that's concealing a light too bright to look at, the kavod of YHWH.
You remember it from the story of the exodus and from the book of Exodus. It looks like a cloud by day, but at night, when it's darker, you can see the fire inside the Cloud:
Exod 13:21 YHWH was going in front of them, by day in a pillar of Cloud, to guide them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give light for them, so they could go night and day.
The same thing happens at the very end of Exodus, at the end of chapter 40, when the pillar of Cloud unrolls and becomes a roof. In Exod 40:34, precisely when the Tabernacle came on line, the Cloud covered it. Then we’re given a sneak preview of the future:
36 When the Cloud would lift off the Tabernacle, the Israelites would go on the march, for all their travels. 37 But if it did not lift off, they would not march until it did. 38 For the Cloud of YHWH was atop the Tabernacle by day, and fire would be over it at night, in view of all the Israelites, throughout their travels.
At that point in our story, as we saw a while ago, you could Choose Your Own Adventure™ and jump immediately to Numbers, but even those who followed the confusing path through Leviticus to get here have now reached the same place. The Tabernacle has been inaugurated (again, the Numbers way), and the Israelites are indeed ready to march off from Sinai toward Canaan.
This week, our story picks up those last few verses of Exodus in Num 9:15 by telling us again — in a repetitive resumption — that
on the day the Tabernacle was set up, the Cloud covered the Tabernacle … and in the evening there would be an appearance of fire over the Tabernacle until morning.
Vv. 16–18 go on to say:
16 That is how it would always be: the Cloud would cover it, and an appearance of fire at night. 17 Whenever the Cloud lifted off the Tent, the Israelites would march; wherever the Tent would tabernacle, there the Israelites would camp. 38 At YHWH’s command they would march and at YHWH’s command they would camp. As long as the Cloud tabernacled over the Tabernacle, they would camp.
What’s involved is that this Cloud is leading them on the path through the wilderness that God wants them to follow. Parenthetically, if you're wondering why the Israelites were in such a bad mood through most of this desert journey and not grateful that God was among them and leading them around, vv. 19–21 provide the answer:
19 When the Cloud stayed over the Tabernacle for a long time, the Israelites would keep the obligation imposed on them by YHWH and not march on. 20 But sometimes the Cloud would stay over the Tabernacle for just a few days. At YHWH’s command they would camp, and at YHWH’s command they would march. 21 Sometimes the Cloud would just stay overnight and lift off in the morning, and they would march; or it might stay for a day and a night and then lift off, and they would march.
Are you kidding me? Whenever the Cloud lifted, the Israelites would have to break camp and march after it, whether it was two days or a month or a year. Think about it: You're camped in the middle of nowhere (that’s what מדבר midbar means in Hebrew, not a desert like the Sahara but a deserted location) and at any moment — that's at any moment for a period of 39 years, since it took them a year before they built the Tabernacle — at any moment, that Cloud lifts and you've got to get moving right away.
So let’s cut the Israelites some slack. That’s not really an easy situation. On the plus side, at least the Cloud is leading you exactly where you're supposed to go and you don't have to worry about directions in this trackless wilderness.
Or do you? Because at the end of Numbers 10, Moses says to “Hobab son of Reuel the Midianite,” his father-in-law (a/k/a Jethro):
29 We are marching off to the place of which YHWH said, “I will give it to you.” Come with us, and we’ll do right by you, for YHWH has promised to do right by Israel.
We, the studio audience, all know that the Israelites are stuck in the wilderness for four decades, but the Israelites themselves still think they will make it to Canaan in just a few weeks. Since Midian (more or less northwestern Saudi Arabia of our day) is much closer to this part of the world than Egypt is, Moses’s father-in-law presumably knows his way around. But he refuses to join them:
30 I’m not going with you. I’m going back to my own country, my homeland.
Moses makes the reason for his request explicit:
31 Please don’t leave us, because you know where we should camp in the wilderness, and you can be our eyes.
And once again Moses offers him a share in the bounty that YHWH will certainly give the Israelites. Interestingly, v. 33 simply continues, “And they marched for three days from the mountain of YHWH.” That is, it doesn't say explicitly whether he stayed with them to guide them or not.
In any case, we have eyes of our own, and this is what we see:
Moses begs his father-in-law to stay with the Israelites so they will know where to camp.
The Israelites always camped wherever the Cloud stopped.
Who are you gonna believe, Moses, your father-in-law or the Cloud of Glory?
Repeat: The Cloud knows exactly where the Israelites should camp in the wilderness. In fact, they must camp exactly where the Cloud tells them, and following the Cloud guides them through the wilderness to their next campsite. Why, then, does Moses need Hobab to guide them through the wilderness?
Jews who pray every morning (if they show up at the synagogue early enough) encounter on a daily basis, as part of the prayer service, the 13 interpretive rules of Rabbi Ishmael. The famous 13th interpretive rule is this: When you find two verses that contradict each other, you look for a third verse that will show you how to reconcile the other two. That’s what I'm doing this week. I’m not promising to do it the same way Rabbi Ishmael himself would have done it.
When we read on in this week’s parashah, we find Numbers 12, where Miriam and Aaron are very upset because Moses has married a Nubian woman. It’s not clear when, how, or why he married her, or why they would be upset, but that is the situation the Torah wants to tell us about. You can read the gossipy details in your Bibles; what matters now is that
YHWH came down in a pillar of cloud (v. 5)
YHWH spoke angrily to Miriam and Aaron (vv. 6–8)
YHWH “went off” and “the Cloud swerved off the Tent” (vv. 9–10)
But … the Israelites do not decamp in this situation, because Miriam was struck with tzara’at (“leprosy,” but not really). Instead, “Miriam was shut out of the camp for seven days and the people did not march off until she was readmitted” (v. 15).
You follow me, of course. In this case, the Cloud moving away from the tent was not to tell the Israelites, as Numbers 9 would suggest, that they should march after it. Instead, the Cloud just moves away from the Tent and (I guess?) hangs out for a while. So I'm suggesting that the way to reconcile being guided through the wilderness by following the tent and being guided by following Hobab is as follows.
Moses is worried. Moses knows that God has a temper and can lose it and might decide at any moment that he's had enough and he's going to leave the Israelites stuck in the middle of nowhere. Moses wants Hobab to stay with them as a backup plan, so the Israelites can still guide themselves through the wilderness if the Cloud goes off in a huff and leaves them stranded.
That didn't happen, but nonetheless things did not go according to plan; we’ll talk about that next week.