Numbers 11:31-32

And there went forth a wind from the Lord, &c.— See Exodus 16:13. As we have met with no commentator who has explained this passage so well and fully as the author of the observations, we here subjoin his very judicious and entertaining remarks. The famous Ludolphus, and after him Bishop Patrick, and the late Bishop of Clogher, believed that they were locusts and not quails, which the children of Israel ate in the wilderness. Dr. Shaw strongly argues the contrary; but he takes no notice of the difficulties which induced Patrick to suppose they were locusts, and which he gives an account of in his comment on this passage. These are their coming with a wind; their immense quantities, covering a circle of thirty or forty miles diameter, two cubits thick;—their being spread in the sun for drying, which, he says, would have been preposterous if they had been quails: for it would have made them stink the sooner. Interpreters, therefore, he thinks, pass over this circumstance in silence; whereas all authors say, that this is the principal way of preparing locusts, to keep them for a month or more, when they are boiled, or otherwise dressed. These difficulties, or at least the two last, appear pressing; nevertheless, I have met with several passages in books of travels, which I shall here give an account of, that may soften them: the reader may think they do more. "No interpreters," complains the bishop, "supposing they were quails, account for the spreading them out in the sun." Perhaps they have not. Let me then translate a passage from Maillet, (Leviticus 4: p. 130.) which relates to a little island that covers one of the ports of Alexandria. "It is on this island, which lies farther into the sea than the main land of Egypt, that the birds annually alight, which come hither for refuge in autumn, to avoid the severity of the cold of our winters in Europe. There is so large a quantity of all sorts taken there, that, after these little birds have been stripped of their feathers, and buried in the burning sands for about half a quarter of an hour, they are worth but two sols the pound. The crews of those vessels, which, in that season, lie in the harbour of Alexandria, have no other meat allowed them." Among other refugees of that time, Maillet, in his ninth letter, p. 21 expressly mentions quails; which are therefore, I suppose, treated after this manner. This passage then does what, according to the bishop, no commentator has done; it explains the design of spreading these creatures, supposing they were quails, round about the camp:—it was to dry them in the burning sands, in order to preserve them for use. So Maillet tells us (Leviticus 11: p. 110.) of their drying fish in the sun in Egypt, as well as of their preserving others by means of pickle. Other authors speak of some of the Arabs drying camel's flesh in the sun and wind, which, though it be not at all salted, will, if kept dry, remain good a long while; and which oftentimes, to save themselves the trouble of dressing, they will eat raw. This is what St. Jerome may be supposed to refer to, in vita Malchi Monachi, when he calls the food of the Arabs, carnes semicrudae, half-dressed flesh.

This drying of flesh, then, in the sun, is not so preposterous as the bishop imagined. On the other hand, none of the authors I have met with, who speak of the way of preserving locusts in the east, so far as I can recollect, give any account of drying them in the sun. They are, according to Pellow, first purged with water and salt, boiled in new pickle, and then laid up in dry salt. So Dr. Russel says, "The Arabs eat these insects when fresh, and also salt them up as a delicacy."

Their immense quantities also forbad the bishop's believing they were quails: and, in truth, he represents this difficulty in all its force; perhaps too forcibly. A circle of forty miles in diameter, all covered with quails, to the depth of more than forty-three inches, is, without doubt, a startling representation of the matter: I would beg leave to add, that the like quantity of locusts would have been very extraordinary. But then this is not the representation of Scripture: it doth not even agree with it; for such a quantity of either quails or locusts would have made the clearing of places for the spreading them out, and the passing of Israel up and down in the neighbourhood of the camp, very fatiguing, which is not supposed.

Josephus, Antiq. lib. iii. c. 1. supposes that they were quails, which, he says, are in greater numbers thereabouts than any other kind of bird; and that, having crossed the sea to the camp of Israel, they, who in common fly nearer to the ground than most other birds, flew so low, through the fatigue of their passage, as to be within reach of the Israelites. This explains what he thought was meant by the two cubits from the face of the earth—their flying within three or four feet of the ground. And when I read Dr. Shaw's account (p. 236.) of the way in which the Arabs frequently catch birds, which they have tired, viz. by running in upon them, and knocking them down with their zerwattys, or bludgeons, as we should call them, (in which account the doctor mentions the quail, along with the wood-cock, the rhaad, the kitawiah, and the partridge,) methinks I almost see the Israelites before me, pursuing the poor, fatigued, and languid quails.

This is, indeed, a laborious method of catching these birds, and not that which is now used in Egypt; for Egmont and Heyman (vol. 2: p. 206.) tell us, that, in a walk on the shore of Egypt, they saw a sandy plain, several leagues in extent, and covered with reeds, without the least verdure; between which reeds they observed many nets placed for catching quails, which come over in large flights from Europe, during the month of September. If the ancient Egyptians made use of the same method of catching quails which they now practise on those shores, yet Israel, in the wilderness, without these conveniencies, must of course make use of that inartificial and laborious way of catching them above described. The Arabs of Barbary, who have not many conveniencies, do the same thing still.

Bishop Patrick supposes a day's journey to be sixteen or twenty miles, and thence draws his circle with a radius of that length: but Dr. Shaw, on another occasion, (p. 319.) makes a day's journey but ten miles, which would make a circle of twenty miles diameter; and as the text evidently designs to express it very indeterminately, as it were a day's journey, it might be much less. But it does not appear to me at all necessary to suppose the text intended their covering a circular, or nearly a circular piece of ground, but only that these creatures appeared on both sides of the camp of Israel, about a day's journey. The same word is used, Exodus 7:24 where round about can only mean on each side of the river; and so it may be a little illustrated by what Dr. Shaw tells us (p. 409.) of three flights of storks, which he saw when at anchor under mount Carmel, some of which were more scattered, others more compact and closer; and each of which took up more than three hours in passing, and extended itself more than half a mile in breadth. Had the flight of quails been no greater than these, it might have been thought, like them, to have been accidental; but so unusual a flock as to extend fifteen or twenty miles in breadth, and to be two days and one night in passing, and this in consequence of the declaration of Moses, plainly determined that the finger of God was there.

A third difficulty with the bishop was, their being brought by a wind. A hot southerly wind, it is supposed, brings the locusts; and why quails might not be brought by the instrumentality of a like wind, or what difficulty there is in that supposition, I cannot imagine. As soon as the cold is felt in Europe, Maillet, in his 11th letter, p. 21 tells us, that turtles, quails, and other birds, come to Egypt in great numbers: but he observed that their numbers were not so large in those years in which the winters were favourable to Europe; from whence he conjectured, that it is rather necessity than habit which causes them to change their climate: if so, it should seem that it is the increasing heat which causes their return, and consequently that the hot, sultry winds from the south must have a great effect upon them to direct their flight northwards. It is certain, that many of these migratory birds return about the time when the south wind begins to blow in Egypt, which is in April. Maillet, who joins quails and turtles together, and says that they appear in Egypt when the winds begin to be felt in Europe, does not, indeed, tell us when they return: but Thevenot may be said to have done it; for, after he has told his reader (part 1: p. 247.) that they catch snipes in Egypt from January to March, he adds, that in May they catch turtles, which turtles return again in September. Now, as their go together southward in September, we may believe they return again northward much about the same time. Agreeable to which, Russel tells us, (p. 63.) that quails appear in abundance about Aleppo in spring and autumn.

If natural history were more perfect, we might speak to this point with greater precision. At present, however, it is so far from an objection to their being quails, that their coming was caused by a wind,—that nothing is more natural. The same wind would in course occasion sickness and mortality among the Israelites, at least it does so in Egypt. See Maillet, Leviticus 2: p. 57 and Egmont and Heyman, vol. 2: p. 62. The miraculousness, then, of this event does not consist in the Israelites' dying, but in the prophet's foretelling with exactness the coming of that wind, and in the prodigious numbers of the quails which came with it; together with the unusualness of the place, perhaps, where they alighted. See Shaw, p. 449.

Nothing more remains to be considered, but the gathering so large a quantity as ten homers by those who gathered fewest. But, till that quantity is more precisely ascertained, it is sufficient to remark, that this is only affirmed of those eager and expert sportsmen among the people, who pursued the game two whole days, and one whole night, without intermission; and of them, and of them only, I presume, it is to be understood, that he that gathered fewest gathered ten homers.