Numbers 11:26

26. But there remained two For reasons satisfactory to the Lord, perhaps from excessive reserve and self-distrust, certainly not from obstinacy, Eldad and Medad did not go to the tabernacle, though they were of them that were written in the roll of the elect seventy. But the Spirit found them out and endowed them. The fire shut up in their bones finds a vent through their lips.

Went not out unto the tabernacle This is by no means a proof that the tabernacle was at this time outside of the camp. “If a gentleman goes out of his yard into his house, it does not follow that his house is not in the yard. The camp, considered as the abode of the people, had its limits within as well as without. An open space, such as reverence required, separated the tents of the people from the tent of God; and this must be traversed in passing from one to the other. It was just as natural to distinguish the camp from the sacred enclosure of the tabernacle as it is for a person in New York city to speak of driving out to Central Park, which is nevertheless within the city limits.” Dr. W.H. Green. There was, for a short time, at the foot of Mount Sinai, a tabernacle without the camp. See Exodus 33:7-11. This was because the sin of the golden calf ruptured the covenant and put an end to all proceedings under it. Without going on to construct the tabernacle according to the specifications given him, Moses sets before the eyes of the people a visible sign of their altered relation to Jehovah by pitching a provisional tabernacle some distance outside the camp, signifying that he would not dwell in the midst of them. But when THE TABERNACLE was built out of the gifts of Israel it was located in the midst of the camp. How wide of the truth is the assertion of Professor W.R. Smith, that Ezekiel paved the way for the sanctuary being located in the midst of the people!

They prophesied in the camp This was deemed an irregularity and an infraction of good order. The unity of the Church in the wilderness was in danger of destruction by this independent centre of prophetic inspiration and authority separate from Moses and the tabernacle.