HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, April 11, 2026 – Eldad and Medad have their 15 milliseconds of Biblical fame buried deep within Numbers. If you rush through the book, you might miss it. Still, Eldad and Medad rank as prophets, because scripture tells us that God’s Spirit spoke through them. They are a prototype of us bornagain believers, a forerunner of what God had in store for his people, so long as they are God’s people.

Eldad and Medad were not among the 70 elders officially designated by Moses to receive a share of God’s Spirit. They had remained behind in the camp when the summoned chosen dutifully filed into the tabernacle to be tapped. And yet God chose the two men to receive his Spirit outside the tabernacle, having seen something in those two that Moses initially missed.

However, as soon as the Spirit fell upon Eldad and Medad and they started prophesying, a boy who heard them ran to tell Joshua, who then rushed to tell Moses, expecting him to immediately silence them. To Joshua’s way of thinking, because Eldad and Medad were not of the 70 chosen elders, their prophesying was undercutting Moses’ authority.

But Moses didn’t see it that way. He knew the two men were prophesying by God’s Holy Spirit, by direct appointment of God. And so instead of commending Joshua for his loyalty, Moses reprimanded him, saying:

Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!

(Numbers 11:29)

As Moses’ protégé, Joshua got schooled and schooled hard in that exchange. But he obviously also learned from it, because later he himself would be guided and emboldened by God’s Holy Spirit, becoming not only a great leader but also one of only two of the original 600,000+ men who left Egypt who ultimately made it to the promised land.

Moses and Joshua’s exchange reminds me of the New Testament passage where the people are shouting “Hosanna in the highest!” during Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem. The Pharisees command Jesus to silence them, to which Jesus replies that if he did silence them, the very rocks beneath their feet would cry out instead. The lesson here is that you can’t interfere with Spirit-led prophesying, as it comes directly from God. Attempting to do so only makes disciples and prophets even of rocks and mountains and trees, which will then proclaim the glory of God everywhere and unfettered.

Moses’ wish that “all the Lord’s people were prophets” finally came true when Jesus founded his Church nearly a millennium and a half later. Everyone in that Church is born again, each with a unique measure of God’s Spirit according to God’s grace. Like Eldad and Medad, all of us bornagain believers are God’s prophets, whether we are recognized by the world (and the worldly church) as such or not. You cannot have God’s Spirit in you and not be a prophet of God, as having God’s Spirit is the very definition of a prophet: “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy”.

We all remember the instant when God first put his Spirit in us – how suddenly we “saw” and how easily we prophesied! Nothing could have silenced us in those early days of our rebirth any more than the disciples could have been silenced at Pentecost: The force of God’s Spirit was overwhelming. I can imagine that Eldad and Medad experienced much the same thing, though with them it wasn’t spiritual rebirth: It was more a visitation of God’s Spirit, like it was for all prophets of God prior to Jesus founding his Church. Still, like us at our rebirth, Eldad and Medad were unstoppable in their prophesying, which Moses in his God-given wisdom recognized for what it was. There was a place and a purpose for Eldad and Medad, just as there was a place and a purpose for Moses and his 70 chosen elders, just as there’s a place and a purpose for us, God’s saints, during the prophesied falling away.

And yet despite the force of God’s Spirit when it first enters us, none of us are fully spiritually formed at that time, not even Jesus. We begin with a bang at our rebirth and grow from there. Jesus had a head start on all of us, being conceived of the Holy Spirit, but he still had to go through his paces, he still had to make his mistakes and learn from them, he still had to bide his time and patiently wait. Part of the waiting was for his sake and part for the sake of others, so that God could strengthen Jesus for his appointed tasks while also getting all his ducks in a row. God likewise has us wait at times. When that happens, it may seem like we’re spinning our spiritual wheels, going nowhere, but that’s just God’s way of preparing us by letting us steep, like tea: the longer we steep, the stronger we grow.

We just need to be careful not to grow cold and bitter while we wait.