And [so] it was when the cloud abode from even unto the morning,.... The whole night, during which time they rested in their beds:
and [that] the cloud was taken up in the morning, then they journeyed;
whether [it was] by day or night that the cloud was taken up, they journeyed; whether at morning or midnight; for sometimes, as Aben Ezra observes, they travelled in the night; whensoever their sentinels gave notice that the cloud was taken up, even though at midnight, they arose and prepared for their journey; and by this it is evident, that the appearance by day and night was the same body called the cloud, though beheld in a different view, in the daytime as a cloud, in the nighttime as fire.