In the foregoing message we considered the guidance given to the children of Israel. In this message we will cover the matter of their setting out.
Numbers 10:11-36 describes how the children of Israel set out, how they went forward on their journey.
The people set out according to the guidance of the cloud. On the twentieth day of the second month in the second year (v. 11a), the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle of the testimony, and the sons of Israel set out on their journeys from the wilderness of Sinai (vv. 11b-12a). Verse 12b tells us that the cloud abode in the wilderness of Paran. This was their setting out the first time at the word of Jehovah by Moses (v. 13).
In verses 14 through 28 we have the sequence of the setting out. In this sequence, the standard of the camp of the sons of Judah took the lead (vv. 14-16), setting out first by their armies. They were followed, not by another camp, but by the sons of Gershon and the sons of Merari, the Levites who carried the tabernacle (v. 17). They were followed, in turn, by the second camp, the camp of Reuben (vv. 18-20). The Kohathites, the Levites who carried the sanctuary, set out next, and the tabernacle was set up before their arrival (v. 21). The camp of the sons of Ephraim set out third (vv. 22-24), and the camp of the sons of Dan, taking up the rear of all the camps, set out last.
Verses 29 through 32 give us a record of Moses asking his father-in-law, an older and more experienced Midianite, to go with them (v. 29). The father-in-law refused (v. 30). Then Moses besought him to go with them in order that he might be their eyes, for they were to encamp in the wilderness (vv. 31-32). Moses thought that his father-in-law would be a great help, but God's sovereignty would not allow any man to come in. Thus, Moses and the children of Israel had to put their trust in the Lord. This account of Moses' trusting in man is inserted here to compare man's leading with the leading of the ark in the subsequent verses.