Exodus 40:36

Summary

The verse describes a recurring pattern: whenever the cloud lifted from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out on the next stage of their journey. It expresses a habitual or repeated action tied to the cloud's movement, not a single historical event.

Key words

• he.'a.Lot ("was taken up", H5927H) — niphal infinitive construct. The niphal stem marks the cloud's rising as passive or reflexive (the cloud "being taken up" rather than someone lifting it), and the infinitive construct with the prefixed preposition be- ("when/in") creates a temporal clause: "when the cloud was taken up."
• 'a.Nan ("cloud", H6051) — masculine singular noun with the definite article he- (H9009), referring to a specific, previously introduced cloud rather than clouds in general.
• yis.'U ("they set out", H5265) — qal imperfect, third person masculine plural. The imperfect aspect here conveys repeated or habitual action ("they would set out") each time the condition in the temporal clause was met, rather than a one-time departure.
• mas.'ei.Hem ("their journeyings", H4550 + H9028) — masculine plural noun in construct with the third person plural suffix "their," preceded by be.Khol ("in all," H3605 construct + H9003), forming the phrase "in all their journeyings" — emphasizing that this pattern held across every stage of travel, not just once.
• be.Nei Yis.ra.'El ("sons/people of Israel", H1121G + H3478) — construct phrase naming the collective subject of the verb yis.'U.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a temporal clause followed by a main clause. The temporal clause — u-ve-he'alot he'anan me'al ha-mishkan ("and when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle") — uses the niphal infinitive he.'a.Lot to present the cloud's rising as an event without specifying an agent; the text does not grammatically indicate who or what causes the cloud to lift. The main clause, yis'u benei Yisra'el, uses the qal imperfect yis.'U, a verb form that in this context expresses repeated action: each time the cloud lifted, the people set out. The closing phrase be-khol mas'eihem ("in all their journeyings") generalizes this pattern across every stage of the wilderness travel described in the surrounding narrative, reinforcing the iterative sense already carried by the imperfect verb.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (VULCLEM) diverges significantly from the Hebrew here: rather than describing the cloud's lifting and Israel's departure, it speaks of "the cloud of the Lord" resting over the tabernacle by day and fire by night, "with all the peoples of Israel watching, through all their stations" — a different content than the Hebrew's departure-upon-cloud-lifting structure. The Hebrew, BSB, and Spanish versions (RV1909, SBLIBRE) align closely in presenting the cloud's ascent as the trigger for departure.