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Bible chapter guide
Numbers 2
The order of the camp: three tribes on each side of the tent of meeting, each under its standard, with Judah leading on the east, Reuben on the south, Ephraim on the west and Dan on the north. They march in the same order.
Summary written for the Labs; read the chapter itself for the full text.
See it in the Labs
- The Feast of TabernaclesThe camp keeps the feast · The Feast of TabernaclesOpen
- The TabernacleCamp of Israel · The TabernacleOpen
- The TabernacleThe east side of the camp · The TabernacleOpen
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- Textually stated
Three tribes camped on each side under a standard, with the Tent of Meeting in the middle.
Stated directly in the text.
- Textually stated
The cloud was over the Tabernacle by day and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all Israel; the tribes camped round the tent, each by its standard.
Exodus 40:38; Numbers 9:15–16; Numbers 2:2. How the cloud and the fire looked is not described; the view shows them as a column over the tent.
- Textually stated
Judah camped on the east toward the sunrise, and Moses, Aaron and his sons camped before the Tent of Meeting on the east.
Stated directly in the text; the Levites camped round the tabernacle so that wrath would not come on the congregation.
- Speculative
Each tribe flew a banner coloured like its stone in the high priest's breastpiece.
A midrashic tradition (Numbers Rabbah 2:7); the text mentions standards and ensigns but not their colours.
- Artistic
The camp is drawn compressed, with the lead tribe of each side in the middle of its three.
Numbers gives sides and order but not distances or shapes; the text says only that they camped 'at a distance' around the tent. One tent stands for about 400 men, drawn as a low tent of dark goats' hair like those desert herders still pitch, doors turned towa…