If Only All Were Prophets! - Reflections on Numbers 11:24-30, Pentecost, Year A

by Dr. John Holbert on Monday, March 23, 2026

         I have little doubt that the vast majority of you preachers will turn to Acts 2 as the basis of your Pentecost sermon; that is the text—often described as “the birthday of the church”—that undergirds the day that is celebrated, ending the Sundays of Easter and inaugurating the long season of Pentecost. However, I have at least four times offered essays on Acts 2, and doubt I have much very new to say about it. This year, the lectionary collectors suggest an alternative to Acts 2: Numbers 11:24-30. I readily admit that I have never written anything about this text from Numbers, so it seems to me it is time to give it a closer look. Of course, you are all free to use Acts this day, but there may perhaps be one or two who might wish to give Numbers a listen.

         One problem with any text from Numbers is the mere fact that it comes from Numbers, a Hebrew Bible book given in Christianity very short shrift, if indeed any shrift at all! Beyond the famous benediction of Num.6:24-26, most Christians could hardly call any text from Numbers to their minds. My Reformed Jewish friends, who must run through the Torah (Gen.-Deut.) each year as preaching texts, or at least in some regular cycle, often feel slightly uncomfortable with texts from Numbers or, even worse, Leviticus! We Christians, often to our extreme detriment, can avoid such texts and stick with the Gospels and Acts. You Acts-Gospel-lovers may find much to energize your Pentecost sermon this year in this rather interesting and provocative piece from obscure Numbers. Let’s see, shall we?

         Numbers, as a whole, tends to reiterate the stories from Exodus, particularly the tales of the wilderness wandering, with significant additions and reflections to spice them up. For example, I have always found darkly amusing the story in Numbers of YHWH’s gift of meat for the starving Israelites. In Ex.16:13 God’s gift of quail for meat is an act of divine beneficence, but Numbers changes that significantly, making God’s supply of quail into a divine judgment. You want meat, do you, says YHWH? Ok, here is meat: “YHWH brought quails from the sea, about a day’s journey in every direction all around the camp, and about two cubits deep on the ground” (Num.11:31). That means in modern terms that the quails covered the ground for about 15 miles in every direction and about 4 feet deep everywhere! Now that is some serious quail! But YHWH did warn them that their demand for meat had made God extremely angry, so angry that they would eat quail for an entire month “until it comes out of your nostrils” (Num.11:19), a decidedly repulsive portrait! And to top it off “while the meat was still between their teeth” (Num.11:33), before they could even swallow it, “YHWH struck the people with a very great plague” (Num.11:33). Divine fury indeed!

         Yet in the midst of that disgusting scene, YHWH offers the gift of the divine spirit to Moses and the elders of Israel in an arresting and memorable episode. God’s grudging and angry supply of quail to assuage the voracious demands of the complaining people, now is interrupted by the gift of the spirit. This is more than surprising; it is patently shocking. “YHWH came down in a cloud and spoke to him (Moses), and reserved some of the spirit that was on him (Moses) and placed it on the 70 elders. And when the spirit found rest upon them, they began to prophecy” (Num. 11:25). God’s spirit, formerly reserved only for the servant Moses, is now distributed to the elders with him. Thus, the story says, the spirit of YHWH is available to many more than famous and notable leaders of the community. 

         The tale goes on to say that two men, Eldad and Medad, apparent members of the elders, did not that day go outside the camp with the others to meet Moses at the Tent of Meeting and to witness the presence of YHWH. Neverthless, they, too, “prophesied,” but “in the camp” (Num.11:26). A small boy witnesses to this fact, tells Moses’s right-hand man, Joshua, who rushes to tell Moses, saying “Master Moses, stop them!” (Num.11:28). But Moses replies, “Do you think I am jealous (of this prophesying)? If only all the people of YHWH were prophets, that YHWH would place the divine spirit upon them!” (Num.11:29)

         Moses here presents an idealized portrait of what might be when God’s spirit falls on all people. The result would be that all would be prophets, that all would speak the truth and power of God’s reign and rule in the earth. This would be a true spiritual egalitarianism. Access to God’s spirit is available to all. This gathering of the people of the spirit is given in sharp contrast to the ravenous mob, hungering only for their immediate surfeit of meat. Just as in the more famous story of Peter’s sermon for the assembled crowd in Jerusalem at Pentecost (Acts 2), so here the gift of the spirit comes from YHWH unbidden, and as a consequence those possessed of that spirit become prophets, in Acts speaking the power of the gospel “in their own language,” and in Numbers becoming prophets of the promises and gifts of YHWH. The two stories present similar, albeit rather different, tales of the power of God’s spirit among the people. Why not offer your congregations the gift of Numbers this year as another way to speak of the wonderful gift of God’s spirit to us all and what that spirit may do in and for our world?