Accordingly Moses brought out the seventy chosen elders, and stationed them round the tabernacle, and they there received the spirit of prophecy in some visible manner, so as to make their divine commission publicly known among the people; but two of them, named Eldad and Medad (the text goes on to say) remained in the camp, and nevertheless they also received the spirit of prophecy, for they were of them that were written בכתובים (i.e. they were of the number of the seventy whom Moses had selected), although they went not out to the tabernacle with the others: "καὶ οὗτοι ἦσαν ἐκ τῶν καταγεγραμμένων, nam et ipsi descripti fuerant," are the versions of the LXX. and Latin Vulgate. And this is evidently the meaning of the passage; for if Eldad and Medad had not been of the chosen seventy, they would have had no right to go out with the others to the tabernacle, and the remark of the historian, "that they remained in the camp and went not out unto the tabernacle," would have been without point or meaning. MR. MARGOLIOUTH, therefore, was quite right to omit these words, as they completely overturn his hypothesis.
Why these two elders remained in the camp is not expressly stated in the inspired narrative. Raschi says,—
מאותן שנבחרו אמרו אין אנו כדאי לגדולה הזה׃
"They were of those who were chosen, but they said, we are not sufficient for this great thing."
He goes on to tell us that Moses being perplexed how to choose seventy elders out of the twelve tribes, without giving offence to some one tribe by choosing a smaller number out of it, selected six out of each tribe, which made seventy-two, and determined by lot the two who were to be omitted. Raschi does not say (as Lightfoot, and after him, Bishop Patrick, seem to have imagined) that the two rejected elders were Eldad and Medad, for this would be inconsistent with the words just quoted, where he ascribes their remaining behind to their humility and sense of insufficiency for so great a work; and I need scarcely say that the text of the Scripture gives no authority for the story of the seventy-two chosen, and the two rejected by lot. But even this story sufficiently proves that the ancient Jewish commentators understood the words ומה כתובים as they are rendered by our English translators.
MR. MARGOLIOUTH'S conjecture, therefore, is totally without foundation; it is not supported by any authority, and is even inconsistent with the plain words of the text. I should be sorry to see "N. & Q." made the vehicle of such rash and unsound criticisms, and therefore I send you this refutation of it.
With respect to Wady Mokatteb, it would be very desirable to have the singular inscriptions there extant carefully copied by competent scholars. Hitherto we have been forced to content ourselves with the drawings sent home by chance travellers; would it not be possible to organize a caravan of competent persons, having some knowledge of oriental tongues and alphabets, to explore these interesting valleys, and bring home correct transcripts of their inscriptions? Many noblemen and gentlemen spend annually on travelling and yachting much more money than would be necessary to organize such an expedition as I am suggesting; and if a party put their funds together, and took with them artists to make the drawings, with a couple of well qualified scholars to assist in deciphering them, I think they might spend as pleasant, and certainly a much more profitable, summer, than in ascending Mont Blanc, or drinking sack in the Rhine steam-boats. Perhaps, also, the improvements in the daguerreotype and talbotype processes might be made available for securing absolute accuracy in the fac-similes of the inscriptions.
JAMES H. TODD.
Trinity Coll. Dublin.
In reference to these celebrated inscriptions, a remarkable statement occurs in the Journal Asiatique for 1836, tom. ii. p. 182., of which I annex a translation:—