פירוש על במדבר 10:11

בחדש השני [IN THE SECOND YEAR] IN THE SECOND MONTH [THE CLOUD DEPARTED] — Consequently you must say that they spent at Choreb twelve months less ten days, since on the New Moon of Sivan (the third month) they encamped there (Exodus 19:1) and did not journey until the twentieth of Eyar of the following year.

בחודש השני בעשרים בחודש, after the ritually impure had purified themselves and had brought their Passover offering on the 14th of the second month, the trumpets were constructed so that Moses could use them to call the people to mobilize for their journey away from Mount Sinai. The Torah informs us of the order in which the 4 army units and their flags were marching and how all this was organized with the help of the trumpets. It also describes the manner in which the trumpets were used on different occasions at the Temple and during times of war. When the cloud lifted off the Tabernacle it began its journey in the direction of Kadesh Barnea, which was the first town in the land of Israel which the Israelites encountered on that journey, described as the journey across “the great and awesome desert” in Deuteronomy 1,19, when Moses is quoted as recalling: “we arrived at Kadesh Barnea.”

בשנה השנית בחדש השני, in the second year in the second month, etc. In this instance the reason the Torah mentions the year before mentioning the month of the year was in order to establish a linkage between the paragraph describing the cloud lifting to the exact date on which this event occurred, i.e. on the twentieth of the month. [According to our author this is the preferred manner in which such matters are to be described. Ed.]