Numbers 11:25

25. In a cloud Literally, in the cloud. This visible symbol of Jehovah’s presence, which stood above the tabernacle, descended and encompassed it and the seventy elders, and thus was the vehicle of the Spirit to them as the breath of Jesus was to the disciples. John 20:22.

And spake unto him The communication is not recorded, perhaps because it was private.

They prophesied The word נבא , to bubble up, occurs here the first time in the Bible. Its most common use is of inspired human discourse. It is chiefly in the passive voice, implying that the prophet is not so much the speaker as the one through whom the divine afflatus, which possesses his faculties, speaks. Thus in the Greek we have the passive form of the verb μαντευεσθαι , to divine, like μαινεσθαι , to be mad, and in the Latin vaticinari, to foretell. Hence prophecy has been regarded by all these peoples as beyond the range of the human mind, and as the work of God subsidizing human organs. This extraordinary utterance may not be limited to the prediction of future events: it may be employed in rebuke, testimony, instruction, exhortation, or comforting, 1 Corinthians 14:3. The Holy Spirit always loosens the tongue. It is fitting that the gift of speech, the crowning faculty of man as distinguished from the brutes, should be monopolized by its Giver when he takes exclusive possession of the body and soul as his temple. See 1 Samuel 10:6; 1 Samuel 19:20-23, notes; Acts 2:18; Acts 19:6. Under the Christian dispensation one in possession of the fulness of the Spirit naturally expresses himself in elevated language, or song. Ephesians 5:18-19. For the difference between the operations of the Spirit before the day of Pentecost and afterward, see Numbers 27:18, note.

And did not cease The Septuagint literally and correctly translates this by και ουκ ετι προσεθεντο , and they did not add, (to prophecy.) They prophesied one day and ceased. Thus the R.V. This was sufficient to impress the people with their divine vocation to an office in which administration and not prophecy was the great function. The Targums, the Vulgate, and the Chaldee all read, they ceased not. This is explained by stone as a perpetual prophetic endowment, and by Patrick and others as covering only the time in which the elders surrounded the tabernacle.