The Seventy Elders

¹⁶ So the Lord said to Moses: “Gather to Me ^(A)seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and ^(B)officers 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. ^(C)I 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, ^[a]‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat; for you have wept ^(D)in 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 (E)but for a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have ^(F)despised the Lord who is among you, and have wept before Him, saying, ^(G)“Why did we ever come up out of Egypt?” ’ ”

²¹ And Moses said, ^(H)“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 (I)Shall 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, ^(J)“Has^[b] the Lord’s arm been shortened? Now you shall see whether ^(K)what I say will happen to you or not.”

²⁴ So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord, and he ^(L)gathered 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, ^(M)when the Spirit rested upon them, that ^(N)they prophesied, ^[c]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 ^(O)had 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.”

²⁸ So Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, one of his choice men, answered and said, “Moses my lord, ^(P)forbid them!”

²⁹ Then Moses said to him, “Are you ^[d]zealous for my sake? ^(Q)Oh, that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!” ³⁰ And Moses returned to the camp, he and the elders of Israel.

The Lord Sends Quail

³¹ Now a ^(R)wind went out from the Lord, and it brought quail from the sea and left them fluttering near the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and about a day’s journey on the other side, all around the camp, and about two cubits above the surface of the ground. ³² And the people stayed up all that day, all night, and all the next day, and gathered the quail (he who gathered least gathered ten ^(S)homers); and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. ³³ But while the ^(T)meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was aroused against the people, and the Lord struck the people with a very great plague. ³⁴ So he called the name of that place ^[e]Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had yielded to craving.

^35 (U)From Kibroth Hattaavah the people moved to Hazeroth, and camped at Hazeroth.