Eldad and Medad

The account appears in Numbers 11 in the Hebrew Bible: while Moses was to distribute spirit to seventy elders at the tabernacle outside the camp, Eldad and Medad remained in the camp yet 'prophesied among the people.' The narrative functions to demonstrate that prophetic speech need not be confined to the institutional setting of the seventy elders. Later traditions place their burial in a cave at Edrei and attribute additional prophecies to them in rabbinic and apocryphal sources.

The supplied sources give no physical description beyond their social status as among 'them that were written down' in the biblical text. No anthropomorphic details (height, clothing, features) are recorded in the provided materials. A later tradition records that they were buried in a cave at Edrei.

In the biblical episode Eldad and Medad spontaneously prophesy while remaining in the camp, demonstrating that the prophetic spirit could appear outside the formal ritual bestowal. Their action provoked Joshua to ask Moses to forbid them; Moses declined, saying it was good for others to prophesy and ideally all Israelites would prophesy. Rabbinic and apocryphal traditions variably attribute to them prophecies concerning a war of Gog and Magog (including defeat by divine fire), the sending of quail in response to Israelite complaint, and predictions of Moses' death and Joshua's succession; their utterances are also cited in early Christian literature such as the Shepherd of Hermas.