And it came to pass on the twentieth day of the second month, in the second year, that the cloud was taken up from off the tabernacle of the testimony.
On the twentieth day ... The Israelites had lain encamped in Wady Er Rahah and the neighbouring valleys of the Sinaitic range, for the space of eleven months twenty-nine days (see the note at Exodus 19:1). Besides the religious purposes of the highest importance to which their long sojourn at Sinai was subservient, the Israelites, after the hardships and oppression of the Egyptian servitude, required an interval of repose and refreshment. They were neither physically nor morally in a condition to enter the lists with the warlike people they had to encounter before obtaining possession of Canaan. But the wondrous transactions at Sinai-the arm of Yahweh so visibly displayed in their favour-the covenant entered into, and the special blessings guaranteed, began a course of moral and religious education which moulded the character of this people-made them acquainted with their high destiny, and inspired them with those noble principles of divine truth and righteousness which alone make a great nation.