Isaiah 4 · a question people ask
A cloud by day and fire by night (4:5). Is this the pillar from Exodus?
Isaiah doesn't say so, but 4:5 shares words with Exodus. When Israel left Egypt, "The LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them on their way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light" (Exodus 13:21), and at the finished tabernacle, "the cloud of the LORD was on the tabernacle by day, and there was fire in the cloud by night" (Exodus 40:38). Isaiah 4:5 has the same four Hebrew words, cloud, by day, fire and by night (tap cloud). It doesn't have the word pillar, and nothing in it goes before a people on the way. The LORD "will create" it (4:5) (tap create), and it is "over the whole habitation of Mount Zion and over her assemblies" (4:5). At the tabernacle, "the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the LORD’s glory filled the tabernacle" (Exodus 40:34); here, "over all the glory will be a canopy" (4:5) (tap glorious, canopy). These notes set the verses side by side and don't say more than they do.
The verses
“The LORD will create over the whole habitation of Mount Zion and over her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night, for over all the glory will be a canopy.”
“The LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them on their way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light, that they might go by day and by night: the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night, didn’t depart from before the people.”
“Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the LORD’s glory filled the tabernacle.”
“For the cloud of the LORD was on the tabernacle by day, and there was fire in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.”