Numbers 10:33

33. Ark of the covenant It is so called according to its design and signification for Israel. The covenant is thus associated with the most sacred thing on the earth, on whose golden lid was the Shekinah, the visible Presence, and over which sublimely towered the cloudy, fiery pillar. This cannot be quoted to prove, as Prof. W. Robertson Smith attempts to do, that the sanctuary was then outside of the camp, for no mention is made of that sacred structure. The record simply says that the ark went before them as their guide.

Went before them The ark was carried separately from the rest of the sacred furniture, in advance of the column, wrapped in its peculiar purple blue covering, (Numbers 4:6, note,) at once an object of veneration and a symbol of Jehovah’s presence and of his separateness from sinners. “It is true, that in the order observed in the camp and on the march no mention is made of the ark going in front of the whole army; but this omission is no more proof of any discrepancy between this verse and Numbers 2:17, or of a different authorship, than the separation of the different divisions of the Levites upon the march, which is not mentioned in Numbers 2:17.” Keil.

A resting place This was not Taberah, the first place mentioned, (Numbers 11:3,) but Kibroth-hattaavah. Comp. Numbers 11:34-35; Numbers 33:16. Although the pillar of cloud was the real guide of Israel in all their journeying, yet the local knowledge of Hobab would manifestly prove of the greatest use in indicating springs and places of pasturage, since divine guidance, in any age, is never a substitute for the best means which human skill or knowledge can suggest.