While the Israelites traveled through the wilderness, seven clouds of glory surrounded them on every side. One cloud went in front, one behind, two flanked them on each side, and one hovered above to shield them from the sun and the cold. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle compiled by Jerahmeel ben Solomon and translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, a seventh cloud went ahead of the people, leveling the high places and raising the low ground so that no one would stumble.
The most extraordinary detail involved the four tribal banners and the letters engraved on each arm of that seventh cloud. The banner of Judah stood in the east, shaped like a lion, with golden hooks ending in a sword-like pike. On its arm of the cloud, three Hebrew letters were engraved: Alef for Abraham, Yod for Isaac, and Yod for Jacob. These letters blazed with the light of the Shechinah, the Divine Presence itself.
In the south stood the banner of Reuben, shaped like a man holding mandrakes. The north held the banner of Dan, in the form of a serpent. The west belonged to Ephraim, whose banner took the shape of a fish. Each banner carried its own set of three ancestral letters, drawn from the Hebrew names of the three patriarchs, and each set shone with the Shechinah's radiance.
One letter remained unaccounted for: the He that God had added to Abram's name when He renamed him Abraham. That extra letter was reserved for God's own name. The cloud above Israel carried all twelve tribal letters simultaneously, illuminating the wilderness camp with a light that came from the patriarchs themselves. The Shechinah did not merely protect Israel. It turned the banners of twelve scattered tribes into a single glowing sanctuary in the desert.