Midrash Esfah (Hebrew: מדרש אספה) is one of the smaller midrashim, which as yet is known only from a few excerpts in Yalkut Shimoni and two citations in Sefer Raziel and Ha-Roḳeaḥ.
It receives its name from Numbers 11:16: "Gather unto me ["Esfah-li"] seventy men of the elders of Israel."
To this midrash may possibly be referred a passage in the Halakot Gedolot[1] and a fragment on Numbers 17:14, 20:1-3,[2] which agrees in its concluding words with the excerpt in Yalkut Shimoni Numbers §763 on Numbers 20:3 (found also §262, on Exodus 17:2, which begins with the same words).
The interesting extract in Yalkut Shimoni Numbers on Numbers 11:16 names the seventy elders in two of its recensions (a third recension of this passage is furnished by a Vatican library manuscript); and one of these versions concludes with a noteworthy statement which justifies the inference that the midrash was taught in the academy of Ḥanina Gaon by Rabbi Samuel, brother of Rabbi Phinehas.
According to modern scholar Anat Raizel, the work is a ninth century Italian collection.