Numbers 11

EVENTS AT KIBROTH-HATTAAVAH.

This chapter details the murmuring and the inordinate hungering of the people for Egyptian food, (1-5,) and their disgust at the manna, which is particularly described, (6-9;) the complaint of Moses at his burdensome charge, (10-15;) the special relief granted in the appointment of seventy elders, and the temporary respite from the people’s clamours by the promise of a month of flesh-eating, (16-20;) Moses, instead of believing, reasons, doubts, and is reminded of Jehovah’s power, (21-23;) the seventy are appointed and baptized with the Spirit, (24-30;) the quails and “the graves of lust,” (31-34,) and the journey to Hazeroth.

CONCLUDING NOTES.

(1.) “One of the most marked characteristics of the Hebrews, as distinguished from all communities before or since, showed itself prominently for the first time in connexion with the selection by Moses of the seventy elders as his special council, the original, in the belief of the rabbins, and even of some Christian theologians, of the Great Synagogue, to which Judaism owed so much after the return from exile at Babylon.… Thus, in the very beginnings, the history of Israel is not that of an inspired book or of an inspired order, but of an inspired people. The Spirit of God rests on them in a degree and in a manner which we meet with in no other race. The seventy, chosen from the tribes, anticipated, in their prophetic gifts, a characteristic of future generations. Miriam in the camp had a successor in Deborah on Mount Ephraim; nor was there a district in Palestine which did not, apparently, see a prophet or prophetess raised up in it by God before the gift was finally withdrawn. How great the fervour of religious life in a community where a succession of individuals could be found in whom it rose to so transcendent an elevation as is implied in the very name of prophet!” Geikie.

(2.) What might appropriately be called the great quail storm has been the subject of much discussion. Keil argues that the quails did not fly over the camp, but that they were thrown upon the ground by the wind in such numbers that they lay as much as two cubits deep in places about the camp, not everywhere of the same depth, but in drifts. He cites in confirmation Psalms 78:27-28, which is a very strong corroboration of his theory, even after abating the poetical exaggeration. It also has the advantage of the first impression produced by these words, “And let them fall by the camp,… as it were two cubits upon the face of the earth.” Says Tristram: “I have myself found the ground in Algeria, in the month of April, covered with quails for an extent of many acres at daybreak, where on the preceding afternoon there had not been one. They were so fatigued that they scarcely moved till almost trodden on; and, though hundreds were slaughtered, for two days they did not leave the district, till the wind veered and they then as suddenly ventured northward across the sea, leaving scarcely a straggler behind. We noticed a like phenomenon in the Jordan valley, on a smaller scale, and I caught several with my hand; one was actually crushed by my horse’s foot.”

The suggestion of the Pictorial Bible is, that the birds “were so strictly kept by the divine power within the limits of a day’s journey from the camp that even when roused they could not rise more than three feet, and were thus easily caught by nets or by the hand.” The extent of this quail shower is variously estimated from an area sixty miles in diameter to one of sixteen miles, or even half that number. The elements of doubt are, (1.) Whether the day’s journey is that of an individual or of the entire camp. (2.) Whether the starting-point of the day’s journey be the centre or the circumference of the camp.