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- pillar of fire:
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- "God guided Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness by a pillar of cloud by day. This became a pillar of fire by night that they might escape from the Egyptian army (Exod 13:21-22). When the Egyptians overtook the Israelites, the angel of the Lord removed this cloudy, fiery pillar from before them and placed it behind them as an effective barrier (14:19-20, 24). The pillar of cloud stood over the tent of meeting outside the camp whenever the Lord met Moses there (33:7-11). The Lord came down for judgment in the cloud (Num 12; 14:13-35). No natural phenomenon fits the biblical description. The cloud and fire were divine manifestations, in a form sufficiently well-defined to be called a pillar." (THE NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE, © 1987 Zondervan, pp. 791-92)