The original words of the last clause are but the two following:—
וְהֵמָה בַּכְּתוּבִים
which literally signify, "and they were amongst the inscriptions."
A personal and literary examination of the locality of the Sinaitic inscriptions convinces me that Eldad and Medad were then in that famous region. By a reference to the chapter alluded to, it will be found that the children of Israel were then at that awfully memorable place called Kibroth Hattavah (ver. 34.), and no one, who has but a slight knowledge of scripture topography, will be at a loss to observe that it is the very spot where the mysterious inscriptions are found.
Dr. Robinson, in his Biblical Researches, vol. i. p. 138., thus notices the subject in question:
"The Sinaite inscriptions are found on all the routes which lead from the West towards Sinai, above the convent El-Arbain, but are found neither on Gebel Mûsa, nor on the present Horeb, nor on St. Catherine, nor in the valley of the convent; while on Serbal they are seen on its very summit."
Lord Lindsay, in his first letter from Edom and the Holy Land, introduces the same district in the following words:
"We now entered Wady Mokatteb, a spacious valley, bounded on the east by a most picturesque range of black mountains, but chiefly famous for the inscriptions on the rocks that line it, and from which it derives its name. There are thousands of them, inscriptions too, and here is the mystery, in a character which no one has yet deciphered."
Now, let the ancient and modern maps be compared, and it will be discovered that the same place which is called, in Num. xi. 26., כְּתוּבִים, probably on account of its inscriptions, is also called by the Arabians وادى المكتّب Wady el Mokatteb.
Should the identity between Wady Mokatteb and Kibroth Hattavah be considered conclusive, then the antiquity of the Sinaitic inscriptions is far more remote than the date fixed by certain archæologists and palæographists; the records may prove to be, in truth and in deed, the handy-work of the Israelites during their encampment there.