C. F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch on Numbers 11:24

Num 11:24

After receiving from the Lord this reply to his complaint. Moses went out (sc., “of the tabernacle,” where he had laid his complaint before the Lord) into the camp; and having made known to the people the will of God, gathered together seventy men of the elders of the people, and directed them to station themselves around the tabernacle. “Around the tabernacle,” does not signify in this passage on all four sides, but in a semicircle around the front of the tabernacle; the verb is used in this sense in Num 21:4, when it is applied to the march round Edom.