But there remained two of the men in the camp, the name of the one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad: and the spirit rested upon them; and they were of them that were written, but went not out unto the tabernacle: and they prophesied in the camp.
But there remained two. These did not repair with the rest to the tabernacle, either from modesty in shrinking from the assumption of a public office or being prevented by some ceremonial defilement. They, however, received the gifts of the Spirit as well as their brethren; and when Moses was urged to forbid their prophesying, his answer displayed a noble disinterestedness, as well as zeal for the glory of God, akin to that of our Lord (Mark 9:39).
They were of them that were written, but went not out unto the tabernacle. Foster ('Sinai Photographed') enlists this passage in support of his favourite theory, that the Sinai Inscriptions were the work of the Israelites, interpreting it thus: 'Eldad and Medad went not out unto the tabernacle, because they were elsewhere occupied in executing or directing the execution of those records of the exode, graven with an iron pen and lead, in the rocks forever.' Such a view is exceedingly forced and altogether groundless. [The word is bakªtubiym (H3789), among the inscribed or enrolled, being summoned in writing, instead of the more common term, qªruw'iym, called.] (See the note at Numbers 1:16; also, Havernick's 'Gen. Historico-Critical Introd. to the Old Testament,' p. 238.) The fact of these two elders remaining in their usual places, without accompanying their colleagues to the tabernacle, to receive in public form the divine commission, and yet being endowed with the gifts of the Spirit, showed that God could perfect His strength in human weakness, and that He is independent of the limits of place in His procedure.
Moreover, it was a visible proof that their call emanated not from Moses, but from God Himself; and 'once more, in the dividing of the Spirit which Moses had, upon the seventy elders of Israel, so that they all did prophesy, we recognize an earlier though a weaker Pentecost, in which, however, the latter was surely implied; because if from the servant could be imparted of his spirit, how much more, and in what larger measure, from the Son?' (Trench 'Hulsean Lectures,' p. 68).