Numbers 11:25 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Numbers 11:25
And the LORD came down in a cloud, and spake unto him, and took of the spirit that was upon him, and gave it unto the seventy elders: and it came to pass, that, when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, and did not cease.
old · definite article + adjective, masculine plural absolute
spirit
הָר֔וּחַha.Ru.ach
H7307
wind · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
rested
כְּנ֤וֹחַke.No.ach
H5117
to rest · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
prophesied
וַיִּֽתְנַבְּא֖וּvai.yit.na.be.'U
H5012
to prophesy · conjunction + verb, hithpael sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
cease
יָסָֽפוּya.Sa.fu
H3254
to add or augment (often adverbial · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Numbers 11:17 And I will come down and talk with thee there: and I will take of the spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them; and they shall b…
Joel 2:28-29 And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your ol…
Numbers 12:5 And the LORD came down in the pillar of the cloud, and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and called Aaron and Miriam: and they both came…
1 Samuel 10:10 And when they came thither to the hill, behold, a company of prophets met him; and the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among…
1 Corinthians 14:1-3 Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy.
1 Samuel 10:5-6 After that thou shalt come to the hill of God, where is the garrison of the Philistines: and it shall come to pass, when thou art come thith…
2 Kings 2:15 And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha. And they came…
Acts 2:17-18 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall p…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Numbers 11:24-30
We have here the performance of God's word to Moses, that he should have help in the government of Israel.
I. Here is the case of the seventy privy-counsellors in general. Moses, though a little disturbed by the tumult of the people, yet was thoroughly composed by the communion he had with God, and soon came to himself again. And according as the matter was concerted, 1. He did his part; he presented the seventy elders before the Lord, round the tabernacle (Num 11:24), that they might there stand ready to receive the grace of God, in the place where he manifested himself, and that the people also might be witnesses of their solemn call. Note, Those that expect favour from God must humbly off…
when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, and did not cease--As those elders were constituted civil governors, their "prophesying" must be understood as meaning the performance of their civil and sacred duties by the help of those extraordinary endowments they had received; and by their not "ceasing" we understand, either that they continued to exercise their gifts uninterruptedly the first day (see Sa1 19:24), or that these were permanent gifts, which qualified them in an eminent degree for discharging the duty of public magistrates.
John Gill on Numbers 11:25
And the Lord came down in a cloud,.... In a cloud of glory, or a glorious one, as the Targums; either in the same that went before the people in the wilderness, or in one distinct from it, and only used on this occasion, as a visible token of the presence of God:
and spake unto him; to Moses, talked with him, as he said he would, Numbers 11:17,
and took of the Spirit which was upon him, and gave it unto the seventy elders; See Gill on Numbers 11:17,
and it came to pass that when the Spirit rested upon them they prophesied; either they sung the praises of God, which is sometimes the sense of prophesying, 1 Chronicles 25:1; blessing God for the honour done them, and the gift bestowed on the…
This Spirit descended upon the seventy elders in Moses' day. My object is to prove that he knew all things and worked according to his will. The seventy elders were chosen: "The Lord then came down in the cloud, and taking some of the spirit that was on Moses, he bestowed it on the seventy elders." It was not that the Spirit was divided, but his gifts were distributed according to the vessels and the capacity of the recipients. Now there were sixty-eight present, and they prophesied. Eldad and Medad were not present. To make it clear that it was not Moses who bestowed the gift but the Spirit who wrought, Eldad and Medad, who had been called but had not yet presented themselves, also prophesied.
But let us look also at another passage, in which it is related that Moses chose seventy men from among the elders of the people, and had them before the tabernacle of the testimony, and that God, taking of the spirit of Moses, gave to the seventy elders; and when the spirit had rested upon them, it says, they all prophesied. That it said He took of the spirit of Moses and gave the spirit to the seventy elders—do not so understand it as though God, taking away some material and bodily substance from Moses, cut it into seventy portions, and thus gave to each of the elders a tiny particle: it is impious so to understand the nature of the Holy Spirit. But observe the figure of this mystical saying in this way, as though Moses, and the spirit which was in Moses, were a lamp of a certain most bright light, from which God kindled seventy other lamps, to which the splendor of that principal light so came that the very source of the light received no loss from the exchange of derivation. And in this way it is piously understood, that which is written, that "the Lord took of the spirit of Moses and gave to the seventy elders."
But let us see what it is that he says in what follows. "And the spirit rested upon them," it says, "and they all prophesied." We do not read that the spirit rests upon just any men, but upon the holy and the blessed. For the Spirit of God rests upon those who are clean of heart, and upon those who purify their souls from sin, just as, on the contrary, it does not dwell in a body subject to sins, even if it once dwelt in it; for the Holy Spirit cannot endure fellowship and association with an evil spirit. For it is certain that at the time of sin the evil spirit is present in the heart of each one and plays its part. And when a place is given to it and it is received by us through evil thoughts and wicked desires, the Holy Spirit, grieved and, so to speak, hemmed in, is put to flight from us. On account of which the Apostle also, knowing that these things so happen, warned, saying: "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit, in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption." Therefore, by sinning we grieve the Holy Spirit, but by acting justly and holily we prepare rest for it within us. Hence, in that he now says of the seventy elders that the spirit rested upon them, he set forth the praise of their life and their virtues. In short, because on account of the purity of their heart and the sincerity of their mind and their capacity of understanding the Holy Spirit rested, it at once also works in them and does not endure idleness where worthy material for working is supplied; for the Scripture says: "and the spirit rested upon them, and they prophesied." In all, therefore, who prophesied, the Holy Spirit rested; yet it did not rest in any of them as it did in the Savior. On account of which it is also written of Him that: "There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall arise from his root. And the Spirit of God shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and piety; and the spirit of the fear of the Lord shall fill Him." But perhaps someone will say: you have shown nothing more written concerning Christ than concerning the rest of men; for just as it was said of the others that the Spirit rested upon them, so also of the Savior it was said: "the Spirit of God shall rest upon Him." But observe that upon no other above is the Spirit of God described as having rested…
Dictionary and topics
Cloud — The Hebrew so rendered means “a covering,” because clouds cover the sky. The word is used as a symbol of the Divine presence, as indicating the splendour of that glory which it conceals (Ex. 16:10;…
Eldad — Whom God has loved, one of the seventy elders whom Moses appointed (Num. 11:26, 27) to administer justice among the people. He, with Medad, prophesied in the camp instead of going with the rest to…
Law of Moses — Is the whole body of the Mosaic legislation (1 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 23:25; Ezra 3:2). It is called by way of eminence simply “the Law” (Heb. Torah, Deut. 1:5; 4:8, 44; 17:18, 19; 27:3, 8). As a written…
Medad — Love, one of the elders nominated to assist Moses in the government of the people. He and Eldad “prophesied in the camp” (Num. 11:24-29).
Moses — Drawn (or Egypt. mesu, “son;” hence Rameses, royal son). On the invitation of Pharaoh (Gen. 45:17-25), Jacob and his sons went down into Egypt. This immigration took place probably about 350 years…
Prophet — (Heb. nabi, from a root meaning “to bubble forth, as from a fountain,” hence “to utter”, comp. Ps. 45:1). This Hebrew word is the first and the most generally used for a prophet. In the time of…
Tabernacle — (1.) A house or dwelling-place (Job 5:24; 18:6, etc.). (2.) A portable shrine (comp. Acts 19:24) containing the image of Moloch (Amos 5:26; marg. and R.V., “Siccuth”). (3.) The human body (2 Cor.…
Cloud Of Glory · God came down in — God came down in
Courts Of Justice · Sanhedrim or court of the seventy: Probably derived from the seventy elders appointed by Moses
John Calvin on Numbers 11:24-25
And Moses went out and told the people the words. We here see how greatly Moses profited by his brief rebuke, for he now actively sets about what he was commanded. Doubt had given him a check, so that he stopped in the middle of his course; whereas he now testifies by the promptitude of his obedience that his distrust is overcome. For just as unbelief discourages men, so that they sink down into inactivity, so faith inspires both body and mind with rigor for the effectual discharge of their duties.
Although the narrative does not expressly state that he spoke to them respecting the flesh, it declares in general terms that he omitted nothing; and, indeed, it would have been very inappropriat…
After receiving from the Lord this reply to his complaint. Moses went out (sc., "of the tabernacle," where he had laid his complaint before the Lord) into the camp; and having made known to the people the will of God, gathered together seventy men of the elders of the people, and directed them to station themselves around the tabernacle. "Around the tabernacle," does not signify in this passage on all four sides, but in a semicircle around the front of the tabernacle; the verb is used in this sense in Num 21:4, when it is applied to the march round Edom.
Num 11:25
Jehovah then came down in the cloud, which soared on high above the tabernacle, and now came down to the door of it (Num 12:5; Ex…
We are not told what happened when the Spirit rested upon them and they prophesied. Whatever happened (possibly ecstatic utterances; cp. Acts 2:4; 1 Cor 14:2), it was a unique occurrence.
Rashi on Numbers 11:25
ולא יספו [AND THEY PROPHESIED] BUT DID NOT CONTINUE (to prophesy) — i. e. they prophesied only that day alone. Thus is the phrase explained in Siphre. Onkelos, however, rendered renders it ולא פסקין “and they did not cease”, meaning that the gift of prophecy never again departed from them (cf. Sanhedrin 17a and Rashi on Deuteronomy 5:19).
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
— Sanhedrim or court of the seventy: Probably derived from the seventy elders appointed by Moses
Desert, Journey Of Israel Through The · Seventy elders appointed to assist Moses — Seventy elders appointed to assist Moses
Inspiration Of The Holy Spirit, The · Necessary to prophesying — Necessary to prophesying
Intolerance, Religious · .Joshua — .Joshua
Jury · Of seventy men, el — Of seventy men, el
Prophets · INSPIRATION OF — INSPIRATION OF
Seventy · The senate of the Israilites composed of seventy el — The senate of the Israilites composed of seventy el
Trouble · .Foo — .Foo
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
