Comentários de Citação sobre Números 34:21

According to Tanchuma Behaalotcha 12 Moses took 72 pieces of paper. On seventy of them he wrote the word “elder,” whereas two pieces of paper he left blank. Every man drawing a slip of paper with the word “elder” knew he had been appointed. The two men who would draw blanks would have to conclude that they had not been found worthy. Seeing Eldod and Meydod were aware of this and were very humble, they remained in the camp without either returning to their private tents nor assembling around the Tabernacle before the drawing of these slips of paper to ensure that none of the participants would be embarrassed by drawing a blank (seeing now Moses only had to prepare 70 such slips). They knew that if they had participated they would have been chosen as the Torah had testified והמה בכתובים, “they had been among the recorded ones” (verse 26). Seeing that they were so modest and humble they were rewarded with a measure of Holy Spirit. Concerning this the Torah wrote (verse 26) “they did not go to the ‘Tent,’ but prophesied in the camp (the general encampment of the Israelites).” The ability to prophesy in an area of a lesser degree of sanctity than the proximity of the Tabernacle was remarkable.
There is an explicit verse in Isaiah 61,1 indicating that the virtue of modesty and humility leads to its owner being imbued with prophetic spirit. The prophet writes: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; He has sent me as a herald of joy to the humble.” The merit of their humility resulted in these two people Eldod and Meydod enjoying a higher degree of Holy Spirit than the seventy elders. Whereas the elders were able to prophesy only concerning events on the following day, i.e. telling the people to sanctify themselves in anticipation of events which would occur on the morrow (verse 18), Eldad and Meidad enjoyed prophetic visions extending to the time when the Messiah would arrive. They made statements regarding the downfall of Gog and Magog. as is written in Ezekiel 38,17: “Thus said the Lord G’d: ‘why, you are the one I spoke of in ancient days through My servants, the prophets of Israel, who prophesied for years (שנים) in those days that I would bring you against them.’” Our sages in Sanhedrin 17 suggest that the word שנים, ”years” in that verse be read as שנים, “two,” the reference being to the two people Eldad and Meidad in our verse here. [There is good reason for this as throughout the verse the word the prophet uses for “years” is ימים, not שנים. Ed.] Additional proof that Eldad and Meidad possessed superior Holy Spirit is the fact that whereas the Torah does not mention the names of the seventy elders, the names of these two men are recorded for all posterity. Furthermore, whereas the elders received their Holy Spirit via a human being, i.e. Moses, Eldad and Meidad had received it from G’d directly seeing Moses had not placed his hand on either of them. In addition to this, the 70 elders all died in the desert whereas Eldad and Meidad entered the Holy Land (Eldad was referred to as אלידד בן כסלון , and Meidad as קמואל בן שפטן, in Numbers 34,21 and 24). These men are described as having been appointed to help in allocating the land of Canaan to the Israelites. All this teaches you that they were richly rewarded for their humility.
ויהי כנח עליהם הרוח, “it was when the spirit rested upon them, etc.” This refers to the spirit of Moses which they received. Concerning the Holy Spirit received by Eldad and Meidad the Torah writes ותנח עליהם הרוח (verse 26), meaning this spirit came directly from G’d.

ויגד למשה אלדוד ומידד מתנבאים במחנה “he told Moses: “Eldod and Meydod are prophesying within the boundaries of the camp.” These two men were (half) brothers of Moses. When the Torah was given, and certain types of family members were no longer allowed to live in married union together, such couples separated in accordance with the law. This caused sorrow among such families as we know from verse 10 in our chapter where Moses is portrayed as listening to the weeping of families which had been broken up as a result of the new laws. (Compare Talmud, tractate Shabbat folio 130.) Amram, Moses’ father, was also affected by these new laws, as when Pharaoh had decreed that all male Jewish babies were to be downed, he had divorced his wife Yocheved, who was his aunt. He had remarried and Eldod and Meydod were sons sired by him from this marriage. Their named reflected that they were compensations for a marriage broken up as a result of the prohibition to marry one’s aunt. [I find this hard to understand as the new laws came into existence after Moses, son of Yocheved, was at least 81 years old, and any children his father could have sired from another wife subsequently could not have been more than babies at the time when the demand aired by the Israelites for meat could have happened. How could such babies have prophesied, much less have been taken seriously if they did? Besides we have no reason to assume that Amram had left Egypt at the Exodus as his son Moses by Yocheved, who had married him at the age of 130, so how old must he have been at the time of the Exodus? Ed.] Our author claims to have found a manuscript of a certain Rabbi Amram, son of a Rabbi Hillel, who had lived in the land of Israel, in which the author writes as follows: “I have personally seen the graves of Eldod and Meydod brother of Aaron through his father’s side but not from the same mother.”’ Some scholars claim that Eldod is identical with a certain Elidod son of Kisslon, mentioned in Numbers 34,21. Meydod is supposed to be identical with Kemuel son of Shifton in verse 24 in that chapter. According to Midrash Tanchuma, section 12 on our portion both these men had humbled themselves in five different ways. Whereas the other seventy men who had drawn lots making them elders, practiced prophecy only on that day, (as indicated in verse 25 when the prophecy concerned the imminent arrival of the quails). Eldod and Meydad prophesied what would happen at the end of the forty years, i.e. Moses’ death and Joshua becoming his successor. They were rewarded by enjoying prophetic status for an indefinite period. According to some opinions they predicted details of the last war before the coming of the messiah, the war involving Gog and Magog. Whereas the other seventy elders did not enter the Holy Land, these two men did. We know that Kisslon and Kemuel entered the Holy Land (Numbers 34). The names of the other seventy elders were not mentioned by the Torah, whereas the names of these men were mentioned. The reason why the prophetic powers of the seventy elders ceased, was that they had been a “’branch” of Moses’ prophetic powers, whereas these two men received their prophetic power directly from G–d. The Holy Spirit is described as functioning when they were not in the vicinity of Moses. This is why the Torah describes their prophesying “inside the camp” not only while on sacred ground next to the Tabernacle. This is the conclusion arrived at in the Talmud tractate Sanhedrin folio 17. The author finds it difficult to believe that these two men had been half-brothers of Moses seeing that according to the Torah in Numbers chapter 34, Elidod and Kisslon were members of the tribe of Binyamin. Kemuel is described there as a member of the tribe of Ephrayim.