Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Numbers 11:24-29
So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord. And he gathered seventy men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. And as soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied. But they did not continue doing it.
Now two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the Spirit rested on them. They were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” And Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said, “My lord Moses, stop them.” But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” (ESV)
by Dale E. Rood
Here, Moses is telling the people via the seventy elders how God is going to provide meat for this large throng of Israelites (vs. 21–23). We find in this incident a power encounter with God. Here is an important lesson Joshua must learn if he is to be a leader: you cannot and must not try to put God “in a box”! The fact that the two elders were prophesying in the camp was “outside the box.” When God displays His power in ways we don’t fully understand, do we try to dismiss it because it isn’t “in our box”?
Copyright Information
Daily Bible Meditations are taken from The Helping Hand,a Sabbath School student quarterly for youth and adults. Copyright © 2010, Seventh Day Baptist Board of Christian Education, Inc.
Scripture quotations marked "ESV" are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Text provided by the Crossway Bibles Web Service.
