Numbers 9:17

And when the cloud was taken up... — Only one instance is recorded of disregard of the Divine direction thus miraculously vouchsafed, viz., in Numbers 14:40. It was necessary that the hosts of Israel should be always in a watchful state, and ready to obey at once the intimations given to them of the Divine will, thus affording a striking type and pattern to the Christian Church, and teaching it both collectively and individually to seek and to follow the guidance of its Divine Head, whose promise is “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”