Pillars of Cloud and Fire

In Exodus 12:37–38, we read that the great company of Israelites and the mixed multitude of non-Israelites who had joined the nation left Egypt from Rameses and traveled to Succoth. Today’s passage reports that after Succoth, they journeyed to “Etham, on the edge of the wilderness” (Ex. 13:20). We do not know for certain the location of Etham, though it likely was close to the modern-day Suez Canal that joins the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. In any case, Israel continued to move east-southeast after departing Egypt.

After describing the move to Etham, Moses tells us that while Israel traveled through the wilderness, God “[led] them along the way” with a “pillar of fire” by night and a “pillar of cloud” by day (Ex. 13:21–22). It would be easy to read this as God’s providing two different pillars, two separate visible phenomena, but this is not the case. We know this from texts such as Exodus 14:24, which features the Lord’s looking down on Israel from a single “pillar of fire and of cloud.” Evidently, God provided a singular sign that appeared as a dark cloud in the daytime and as fire at night. Some traditional understandings of this pillar hold that it was a pillar with fire at its core and surrounded by clouds.

Why a pillar of fire and cloud? Among the suggestions is that this vision would comfort the people in the wilderness. One commentator notes that a cloud would be a welcome sight in the hot, dry wilderness as a sign of potential rain. A pillar of fire would give light at night and perhaps even warmth and a warning to potential enemies to stay away from the camp of Israel. Importantly, God would soon meet with His people at Mount Sinai, making His presence known there by cloud and fire not long after they left Egypt (see Ex. 19:16–18). At the very least, the Lord was preparing them to know that He was with them at Sinai when Moses received the Ten Commandments.

Matthew Henry comments that “those whom God brings into a wilderness he will not leave nor lose there, but will take care to lead them through it.” The pillar of cloud and of fire visibly demonstrated to the nation of Israel that the Lord was with them. It was an extraordinary sign needed at an extraordinary time when God was constituting His people as a nation to prepare the way for the eventual coming of the Messiah. The Lord does not typically guide us by extraordinary signs today. Still, through the ordinary means of the preached Word, prayer, and sacraments, He assures us of His presence and guides us wisely as we seek to honor Him with our lives.