Numbers 11:31-32

31, 32. A wind from the Lord All winds are produced by the power of Jehovah, (Psalms 135:7,) since neither the laws of nature nor the qualities of matter produce motion. The Greek philosopher Anaxagoras taught that all force emanates from νους , mind, a power distinct from nature, and presiding over it. This is the best Christian philosophy. The wind was either a southwest wind, from the region of the upper Nile, or a southeast one, from the Arabian Gulf.

Brought quails Some have contended that the salvim were not quails but locusts; but modern Hebraists reject this interpretation, and insist that the common quail is the bird. This is corroborated by the striking similarity of the modern Arabic salwa, quail, to the Hebrew, selav. See Exodus 16:13, note. The theory that they were wild fowls about three feet high, such as wild geese or storks, or Stanley’s “large red-legged cranes,” is a gratuitous assumption without the least scriptural foundation.

A day’s journey On both sides of the camp, for the space of eight or ten miles, the ground was thickly strewn with exhausted quails, none of them able to fly more than two cubits from the ground. “It is a not uncommon occurrence, that, when wearied, these birds droop and settle down for rest, so as to be easily clubbed with sticks, and even caught by the hand. The miraculous provision chiefly lay in the extraordinary number, the seasonable arrival, and the peculiar circumstances under which those quails came.” Edersheim. See Concluding Notes.

Ten homers About fifty-five bushels, according to Josephus, or half this quantity, according to the rabbins. This was the accumulation of the least industrious person. “By this enormous quantity, which so immensely surpassed the natural size of the flocks of quails, God purposed to show the people his power to give them flesh not for a day or several days, but for a whole month, both to put to shame their unbelief, and to punish their greediness.” Keil.

They spread them all abroad For the purpose of drying them in the sun. Our earliest history of Egypt describes the people as salting and drying great quantities of fish and fowl. Calmet thinks that the Hebrews salted their quails, and then dried them, in imitation of the Egyptians.