פירוש על במדבר 11:29

המקנא אתה לי means, “art thou envying where I should envy”.

כי יתן ה' את רוחו עליהם, without any spiritual radiation emanating from me.

המקנא אתה לי? "are you jealous on my behalf?" According to the view that Eldod and Medod belonged to the 70 elders chosen, we must explain the verse as follows: "Is your jealousy based on the fact that these men were unwilling to receive their share of prophetic insights from me rather than from G'd directly? I wish all the Jewish people had been endowed directly by G'd with prophetic insights instead of having to receive it from me as their intermediary." This is shown clearly by Moses using the words מי יתן כי יתן ה׳ את רוחו עליהם. In this manner Moses demonstrated his utter humility and total lack of a desire for personal honour. According to the view that Eldod and Medod were the two men who had drawn blanks during the lottery among the 72 prospective candidates, Moses asked Joshua whether it bothered him that instead of 70 people having been endowed with Holy Spirit he now found that actually 72 people had received prophetic insights. Moses told Joshua that he, personally, wished that G'd would grant every Israelite prophetic insights. The reason Moses said: "may G'd grant His spirit, etc," is that Moses viewed the 70 people who had received prophetic insights with him as the intermediary as being only the beginning. Now that G'd had shown that He had granted prophetic insights directly to two more Israelites, he could only hope that G'd would grant such prophetic insights to everybody. None of such additional prophetic insights would be a denial or diminution of Moses' own stature as a prophet.