Matthew Henry on Numbers 11:31–end
God, having performed his promise to Moses by giving him assessors in the government, thereby proving the power he has over the spirits of men by his Spirit, he here performs his promise to the people by giving them flesh, proving thereby his power over the inferior creatures and his dominion in the kingdom of nature. Observe, 1. How the people were gratified with flesh in abundance: A wind (a south-east wind, as appears, Psa 78:26) brought quails, Num 11:31. It is uncertain what sort of animals they were; the psalmist calls them feathered fowl, or fowl of wing. The learned bishop Patrick inclines to agree with some modern writers, who think they were locusts, a delicious sort of food well k…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Numbers 11:31
There went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea, &c.--These migratory birds (see on Exo 16:13) were on their journey from Egypt, when "the wind from the Lord," an east wind (Psa 78:26) forcing them to change their course, wafted them over the Red Sea to the camp of Israel.
let them fall a day's journey--If the journey of an individual is meant, this space might be thirty miles; if the inspired historian referred to the whole host, ten miles would be as far as they could march in one day in the sandy desert under a vertical sun. Assuming it to be twenty miles this immense cloud of quails (Psa 78:27) covered a space of forty miles in diameter. Others reduce it to sixte…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Gill on Numbers 11:31
And there went forth a wind from the Lord,.... Both an east wind and a south wind, according to Psalm 78:26; either first one wind, and then another; one to bring the quails, or whatever are meant, to a certain point, and then the other to bring them to the camp of Israel; or a southeast wind, as the Jewish writers interpret it: however, it was not a common wind, but what was immediately raised by the Lord for the following purpose:
and brought quails from the sea; the Red sea, from the coasts of it, not out of it. Josephus (t) says, there were great numbers of this sort of fowl about the gulf of Arabia; and Diodorus Siculus (u) says, near Rhinocalura, a place not far from those parts, quai…
