Or HaChaim on Numbers 11:25/אור החיים על במדבר י״א:כ״ה

1 וירד ה׳ בענן וידבר אליו, G'd descended within the cloud and spoke to him, etc. What did G'd say to Moses? Besides, what was the neeed for this whole procedure? Why did G'd not simply let these people prophesy? We may understand what happened when we consider a statement of the Zohar on Pinchas 220 on Numbers 25,12: "Behold I give unto him My covenant, peace." G'd commanded Moses to bestow this covenant of peace on Pinchas. The reason was that Moses had already acquired that gift so that it was considered his possession. Seeing that G'd does not take away a gift He had given to someone in order to give it to someone else, Moses had to be the one to bestow it on Pinchas. Similarly, here. Moses had been given the gift of prophecy, exclusively. When G'd wanted to give the elders the gift of prophecy He had to do so via Moses. This is why Moses is known as אדון הנביאים, the "master" of the prophets. When Moses assembled the elders he remained with them and G'd descended within the cloud. The word vayedaber may be read as vayadber, "He made subordinate" (compare Psalms 47,4). G'd took permission from Moses to transfer some of his Holy Spirit.

2ויאצל מן הרוח, He took from the spirit, etc. The word ויאצל may have been intended as a clue to the source of this prophetic spirit, i.e. the עולם האצילות, a domain very close to the throne of G'd. מן הרוח אשר עליו, "from the spirit which was upon him;" this may describe the quality of that spirit. The source of the spirit which was bestowed on the elders emanated not from Moses but from higher regions. Alternatively, it may mean that after the spirit which imbued Moses was given to the elders, עליו, Moses' own spirit remained fully intact. Bamidbar Rabbah 15 states that when Moses evaluated the level of prophecy the elders attained, it turned out that the 2 elders Eldod and Medod (numbers 71 and 72 respectively) had received a higher degree of prophetic spirit because their portion came from G'd directly, whereas the other seventy elders received their prophetic spirit only from Moses. This was why the seventy elders prophesied only briefly.

3ויהי כנוח עליהם הרוח, it was when the spirit rested upon them, etc. We know that the word ויהי usually introduces a paragraph containing a regrettable event. Our sages in Bamidbar Rabbah 19 claim that the elders prophesied the message in verse 18, i.e. that there would be quail on the following day. How can there be something more painful than to commence a career as a prophet by predicting that one's peers should prepare for disaster?

4The reason the Torah wrote the word ויתנבאו, "they prophesied" with the letter ו at the beginning is to tell us that not only were these 70 people worthy of receiving the gift of Holy Spirit, they were even worthy of attaining prophetic insights. The Torah informs us that they prophesied immediately after having been granted some of Moses' Holy Spirit. Another saddening experience which justifies the word ויהי is that the seventy elders prophesied only so briefly and did not retain their prophetic spirit [presumably because they joined the people who wept when the spies returned, something which occurred shortly thereafter. Ed.]