Numbers 10:11
וַיְהִי בַּשָּׁנָה הַשֵּׁנִית בַּחֹדֶשׁ הַשֵּׁנִי בְּעֶשְׂרִים בַּחֹדֶשׁ נַעֲלָה הֶֽעָנָן מֵעַל מִשְׁכַּן הָעֵדֻֽת׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיְהִ֞י בַּשָּׁנָ֧ה הַשֵּׁנִ֛ית בַּחֹ֥דֶשׁ הַשֵּׁנִ֖י בְּעֶשְׂרִ֣ים בַּחֹ֑דֶשׁ נַעֲלָה֙ הֶֽעָנָ֔ן מֵעַ֖ל מִשְׁכַּ֥ן הָעֵדֻֽת׃
Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ ἐνιαυτῷ τῷ δευτέρῳ ἐν τῷ μηνὶ τῷ δευτέρῳ εἰκάδι τοῦ μηνὸς ἀνέβη ἡ νεφέλη ἀπὸ τῆς σκηνῆς τοῦ μαρτυρίου,
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Anno secundo, mense secundo, vigesima die mensis, elevata est nubes de tabernaculo fœderis:
En el segundo año, en el segundo mes, a los veinte días del mes, la nube se levantó de encima del tabernáculo del Testimonio.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y fué en el año segundo, en el mes segundo, á los veinte del mes, que la nube se alzó del tabernáculo del testimonio.
On the twentieth day of the second month of the second year, the cloud was lifted from above the tabernacle of the Testimony,
✦ What the text says
Summary
This verse marks a precise date — the twentieth day of the second month of the second year — on which the cloud lifted from over the tabernacle of the testimony. It functions as a narrative time-marker introducing the departure of the Israelite camp described in the following verses.
Key words
- yehi ("it was", H1961) — qal narrative form of "to be", the standard formula opening a dated narrative unit ("and it came to pass").
- shenit / sheni ("second", H8145) — ordinal number, feminine for shanah ("year") and masculine for chodesh ("month"), agreeing in gender with each noun it modifies.
- na'alah ("it was taken up", H5927) — niphal perfect: the niphal stem marks the cloud as undergoing the action rather than performing it, and the perfect aspect presents the lifting as a completed event.
- 'anan ("cloud", H6051) — masculine singular noun, the subject of the niphal verb.
- mishkan ha'edut ("tabernacle of the testimony", H4908 + H5715) — construct chain, mishkan ("tabernacle of...") governing 'edut ("testimony"), naming the specific structure over which the cloud had rested.
What the text says
The verse opens with the narrative formula va-yehi ("and it was"), followed by a triple date built from ba-shanah ha-shenit ("in the second year"), ba-chodesh ha-sheni ("in the second month"), and be-'esrim ba-chodesh ("on the twentieth of the month"). This date functions as a temporal clause preceding the main verb, a common structure in Biblical Hebrew narrative where the time is established before the reported action.
The main clause states that ha'anan ("the cloud") na'alah ("was taken up") me'al mishkan ha'edut ("from over the tabernacle of the testimony"). The niphal form of na'alah presents the cloud as the grammatical subject undergoing displacement, without specifying an agent — the Hebrew text itself does not state what caused the cloud to rise. The compound preposition me'al ("from over/above") specifies that the cloud's position had been directly above the tabernacle before departing from it.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders na'alah with the active verb anebē ("it went up"), where the Hebrew niphal na'alah ("it was taken up") is grammatically passive; the Vulgate's elevata est ("it was raised") preserves the passive sense. The LXX also translates the compound preposition me'al simply as apo ("from"), omitting the "over/above" component present in the Hebrew me'al. The Vulgate renders 'edut ("testimony", H5715) as foederis ("of the covenant"), a different semantic term from the Hebrew word for "testimony" that the LXX preserves as martyriou ("of the testimony").
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.