Numbers 11:31 - Exposition

A wind from the Lord. A wind Divinely sent for this purpose. In Psalms 78:26 it is said to have been a wind from the east and south, i.e; a wind blowing up the Red Sea and across the Gulf of Akabah. And brought quails from the sea. On the "quails" (Hebrew, salvim— probably the common quail) see Exodus 16:13 . The Septuagint has in both places ἡ ὀρτυγομήτρα , "the quail-mother," the sense of which is uncertain. These birds, which migrate in spring in vast numbers, came from the sea, but it does not follow that the camp was near the sea. They may have been following up the Gulf of Akabah, and been swept far inland by the violence of the gale. Let them fall by the camp. Rather, "threw them down on the camp." יִּטַשׁ עַל הַמַּחֲגֶה . Septuagint, ἐπέβαλεν ἐπὶ τὴν παρεμβολήν . Either the sudden cessation of the gale, or a violent eddying of the wind, threw the exhausted birds in myriads upon the camp (cf. Psalms 78:21 , Psalms 78:28 ). Two cubits high upon the face of the earth. The word "high" is not in the original, but it probably gives the true meaning. The Septuagint, ὡσεὶ δίπηχυ ἀπο τῆς γῆς , is somewhat uncertain. The Targums assert that the quails "flew upon the face of the ground, at a height of two cubits;" and this is followed by the Vulgate (" volabant in acre duobus cubitis altiludine super terram" ) and by many commentators. This idea, however, although suggested by the actual habits of the bird, and adopted in order to avoid the obvious difficulty of the statement, is inconsistent with the expressions used here and in Psalms 78:1-72 . If the birds were "thrown" upon the camp, or "rained" upon it like sand, they could not have been flying steadily forward a few feet above the ground. It is certainly impossible to take the statement literally, for such a mass of birds would have been perfectly unmanageable; but if we suppose that they were drifted by the wind into heaps, which in places reached the height of two cubits, that will satisfy the exigencies of the text: anything like a uniform depth would be the last thing to be expected under the circumstances.