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Numbers 11:16
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14 aI am not able to bear all these people alone, because the burden is too heavy for me.  
15 If You treat me like this, please kill me here and now—if I have found favor in Your sight—and ado not let me see my wretchedness!”  

The Seventy Elders

16 So the Lord said to Moses: “Gather to Me aseventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and bofficers over them; bring them to the tabernacle of meeting, that they may stand there with you.  
17 Then I will come down and talk with you there. aI will take of the Spirit that is upon you and will put the same upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you may not bear it yourself alone.  
18 Then you shall say to the people,1 ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat; for you have wept ain the hearing of the Lord, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat? For it was well with us in Egypt.” Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you shall eat.  
19 You shall eat, not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days,
20 abut for a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have bdespised the Lord who is among you, and have wept before Him, saying, c“Why did we ever come up out of Egypt?” ’ ”  
21 And Moses said, a“The people whom I am among are six hundred thousand men on foot; yet You have said, ‘I will give them meat, that they may eat for a whole month.’  
22 aShall flocks and herds be slaughtered for them, to provide enough for them? Or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to provide enough for them?”  
23 And the Lord said to Moses, a“Has the Lord’s arm been shortened? Now you shall see whether bwhat I say will happen to you or not.”  
24 So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord, and he agathered the seventy men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tabernacle.  
25 Then the Lord came down in the cloud, and spoke to him, and took of the Spirit that was upon him, and placed the same upon the seventy elders; and it happened, awhen the Spirit rested upon them, that bthey prophesied, although they never did so again.  
26 But two men had remained in the camp: the name of one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad. And the Spirit rested upon them. Now they were among those listed, but who ahad not gone out to the tabernacle; yet they prophesied in the camp.  
27 And a young man ran and told Moses, and said, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”
Book Notes:
Barnes' Book Notes



Introduction to Numbers

The title commonly given to this book is evidently suggested by the two numberings of the people recorded in Num. 1 and Num. 26.

The book narrates the history of the Israelites during their sojourn in the wilderness from the completion of the law-giving at Sinai, Leviticus 27:34, to their mustering in the plains of Moab for actual entry into the land of promise.

The incidents are generally given in their chronological order, except in the third part. The five chapters comprised in this part appear to deal with a long period, from which only isolated episodes are given; and of these the dates can only be conjectured.

Between the two dates "the first day of the second month of the second year after they were come out of Egypt" Numbers 1:1, and the death of Aaron Numbers 33:38, intervene no less than 38 years and 3 months (compare Deuteronomy 2:14), the long and dreary period of tarrying in the wilderness until the disobedient generation had wasted away.

From the death of Aaron to the date given in the opening verses of Deuteronomy Deuteronomy 1:1-3, occurred a space of exactly six months, in which all the events narrated in the fourth part of the Book of Numbers, from Numbers 20:1 to the end, would seem to have occurred, with the probable exception of the defeat of the king of Arad Numbers 21:1-3.

As regards the authorship and date of composition, the notes of time, the tenor of the contents, no less than the direct assertions of the text itself, lead to the conclusion that Moses is properly spoken of as the writer of the Book of Numbers. It is in substance his work; though many portions of it were probably committed to writing many years before the whole was completed; and the concluding chapters were not written until toward the close of the 40th year after the exodus.

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