“And Moshe and Aharon, Nadav and Avihu, and the seventy elders of Yisrael ascended (Har Sinai). And they saw G-d … and they ate and drank” (24:9-11).
The Maseches Sofrim, explains that the Pasuk in Yehoshua (14:15) ”the great man among the giants”, is referring to Avraham Avinu, whose eating and drinking corresponded to that of seventy-four men. Needless to say, this Medrash is, at first sight, a p’li’ali (incomprehensible) – until we read the current Pasuk. What the Tana clearly means is that Avraham ate with such devotion, that he reached the level of the seventy-four men mentioned in the Pasuk, who, having just beheld G-d, must have eaten with the highest level of devotion imaginable.
(Incidentally, this Medrash does not follow the opinion that the elders sinned here, as others explain. See Rashi, Pasuk 11).
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Alternatively, the Medrash refers to Avraham’s level of Ru’ach ha’Kodesh.
In explaining this, the G’ro cites the Pasuk further on (29:33) ‘’And those who are atoned for by them shall eat it”, which Chazal in Pesachim (59b) explain to mean that when the Kohamin eat Kodshim, the owner is atoned for. This in turn, refers to the Ru’ach ha’Kodesh that the Kohanim attained whenever they ate Kodshim. And the level of Ru’ach ha’Kodesh was determined by the level of the Korban (i.e. if it was on the level of Kodesh Kodshim, or if it was a Korban Tzibur [a communal offering), then their level of Ru’ach ha’Kodesh rose accordingly).
And that is precisely what happened here. Moshe, Aharon, Nadav, Avihu and the seventy elders reached the highest levels of Ru’ach ha’Kodesh, because they had just partaken from meat that was both Kodesh Kodshim and of a Korban Tzibur. And that is the level of Ru’ach ha’Kodesh that Avraham Avinu attained whenever he ate.
