The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 133

Akahah. And brought quails from the sea. more q_ua.ils apiece than would have filled A On the "quails" (Hebrew, .mwim-probably 460 gallon tun. No doubt the total number the common quail) see Exod. xvi. 13. The was something enormous, and far above a.ny. Septuagint ha.s in both places~ l,prvyoµ~rpa, thing that could have been supplied by "the quail-mother," the sense of which is natural agencies. The gifl; of qua.ils, like uncertain. These birds, which migrate in that of m!l,nna, was one of the gifts of nature sprinl!' in vast num hers, came from the sea, proper to that region Divinely multiplied but it does not follow that the camp was and extended, so as to show forth in the near the sea., They may have beeu following most striking way the boundless power up the Gulf of Akabah, and been swept far and beneficence of God. They spread them inland by the violence of the gale. Let them all abroad. In order to dry them in the fti.11 by the camp. Rather, "threw them down sun, as the Emtians used to do with fish on the camp." n;□~iJ ';,p t 1!;:l~- Septuagint, do (Herod., ii. 77), and as the South A.nericans with beef. Flesh thus cured does not hr;{3a).,v hrl 7"7/~ ·.,,,ap1µ./30).riv. Either the need salt, which the Israelites would not sudden cessation of the gale, or a violent have in sufficient quantities. eddying of the nind, threw the exhausted Ver. 33. -And while the flesh was yet birds in myriads upon the camp (cf. Ps. between their teeth, ere it was chewed. If lxxviii. 21, 28). Two cubits high upon the this were taken in the most literal sense, it face of the earth. The word " high " is would mean thn.t no one of the people had not in the original, but it proba.bly gives the time to swallow a single morsel of the coveted true meaning. The Septuagint, WO'Ei ci1r'IXV food ere he was stricken down by the Divine ar.o riis riic, is somewhat uncertain. The visitation. We can sco.rcelr imagine, however, Targnms assert that the quails "flew upon the.t such was the ca.se m every single in- the face of the ground, at a height of two stance. It would indeed appea.r llll if they cubits;" and this is followed by the Vulgate had with one consent postponed the enjoy- (" volabant i1i m::re duo'trus cubitis aUitudine ment of eating the quails until they had ilUper terram") and by ma.ny commentators. gathered as huge a quantity for future use This idea, however, although suggested by as possible ; as if in defiance a.nd contempt the actual habits of the bird, and adopted in of the Divine warning that their greed would order to avoid the obvious difficulty of the turn to satiety and loathing (see vers. 19 and statement, is inconsistent with the expres- 32). If this were so, then the feast to which sions used here and in Ps. l=viii. If the they so eagerly looked forward would begin birds were "thrown" upon the camp, or throughout the camps on the second night, "rained" upon it like sand, they could not and the visitation of God might well ha.ve have been flying steadily forward a few feet had the sudden and simulroneous character above the ground. It is certainly impossible attiibuted to it here and in, Ps. 1:xxviii. 30, to take the statement literally, for such a 31. At any rate the statement of the text ma.ss of birds would have been perfectly un- positive.ly excludes the idea that they went manageable ; bnt if we suppose that they on eating quails for a whole month, according were drifted by the wind into heaps, which to the promise (or threat) of ver. 20. There in pla.ces reached the height of two cubits, was flesh enough to have secured the literal that will 118.tisfy the exigencies of the text : fulfilment of that promise by gorging them anything like a uniform depth would be the for a whole month; but it is evident that last thing to be expected under the circum- the Divine wrath anticipated any such tardy stances. revenges, and smote its victims in the very Ver. 32.-.b.d the people stood up . . . moment of their keenest gratification. The next day. A statement which shows ne Lord smote the people with a very great how greedy the people were, and how in- plague. Both ancients and moderns stnte ordinately eager to supply them.selves with that the flesh of quails ia unwholesome (cf. nn abundance of animal food. They were so Pliny, x, 28), but this appears to have no afraid of losing any of the birds that they very valid foundation. Unq uestionn.bly stayed up all night in order to collect them; quails eaten for a month by people unlll!ed probably they only ceased gathering and to a flesh diet would produce many and fa.ta! began to ea.t when the available supply was sicknesses; but thore is no room for any spent. Ten homers. It is difficult to cal- such natural results here. Whatever form culate the capacity of the homer, especially the pla.gue may ha.ve taken, it was as cloa~·ly as it may have varied from age to age. If supernatural in its suddenness and intensity it contained ten epbahs, as seems to be im- as the supply of quails itself. We do not plied in Ezek. xlv. 11, and if the estimate of know anything as to who wore smitten, Ol' the Rabbiniste (which is less than that of how many • the Psalmist tells us that they Josephus) be correct that the ephah held nearly were "the' fattest" u.nd "the chosen" i11 four and a half gallons of liquid measure, Israel 1 and we may na.tnra.lly supposs that then half e. million of men must.have colltcted those wb.o had beep forew,ost in the lusting OII, XI, 4-85.] THE BOOK OF NlJl[BERB. 118