I will take of the spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them. The Holy Spirit is one and indivisible. But in the language of Scripture "the Spirit" often stands for the charismata, or gifts of the Spirit, and in this sense is freely spoken of as belonging to this or that man.
So the "spirit of Elijah" (2 Kings 2:9, 2 Kings 2:15), which was transferred to Elisha, as it were, by bequest. It was not, therefore, the personal indwelling presence of the Holy Ghost in Moses which God caused him to share with the seventy elders, for that can in no ease be a matter of transfer or of arrangement, but simply those charismata or extraordinary gifts of the Spirit which Moses had hitherto enjoyed alone as the prophet of Israel.
It is strange that in the face of the clear teaching of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:1-31, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, and in view of such cases as those of Saul (1 Samuel 10:10; 1 Samuel 19:1-24:93) and David (1 Samuel 16:13), any difficulty should have been felt about this passage.
They shall bear the burden of the people with thee. It does not appear how they were to do this, nor is there any record of their work. Their gifts, however, were spiritual, and we may probably assume that their usefulness lay in producing and maintaining a proper religious tone among the people.
The real difficulty which stood in the way of Moses was not one of outward organization or of government, for that had been amply provided for; it lay in the bad tone which prevailed among the people, and threatened to destroy at any moment the very foundations of their national hope and safety.
We may see in these seventy not indeed a Sanhedrim to exercise authority and discipline, but the first commencement of that prophetic order which afterwards played so large a part in the religious history of Israel and of the early Christian Church—an order designed kern the first to supplement by the freedom and originality of their ministry the more formal and unvarying offices of the priesthood.
If this was the nature of their usefulness, it is not surprising that they are never mentioned again; and it is observable that a similar obscurity hangs over the activity of the prophets of the New Testament, who yet formed a most important part of the gospel regime (cf.
1 Corinthians 14:29-32; Ephesians 2:20).