Quail and the Seventy Elders

The people complain, and fire burns the edge of the camp at Taberah. Then "the mixt multitude" begins to crave, and Israel weeps: "We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick: But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna."

Moses breaks down: "Have I conceived all this people? have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child… I am not able to bear all this people alone."

God takes of the Spirit that was on Moses and puts it on seventy elders at the tent, and they prophesy. Two of them, Eldad and Medad, had stayed in the camp, and prophesy there. Joshua says, "My lord Moses, forbid them." Moses answers: "Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the LORD's people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!"

A wind from the LORD brings quail from the sea, about two cubits deep around the camp. The people gather for two days, "and while the flesh was yet between their teeth… the LORD smote the people with a very great plague." The place is called Kibroth-hattaavah, "the graves of craving."

The food of Egypt

The list is accurate to Egypt: fish from the Nile, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. Herodotus reports an inscription saying the builders of the Great Pyramid ate radishes, onions and garlic; Egyptian tomb paintings show onions and leeks in offerings and meals. Slavery was hard, but the food was better than manna in memory.

Quail from the sea

Common quail migrate in huge numbers across the Mediterranean and Sinai each spring and autumn, landing exhausted on the coast. Egyptians and later Bedouin caught them in nets; in the early 20th century, Egypt exported millions of quail a year from the Sinai coast. Some scientists suggest that quail feeding on certain plants on migration can cause a poisoning (coturnism), as one possible connection with the plague.

The lost book of Eldad and Medad

Jewish tradition wondered what Eldad and Medad prophesied. A book of their prophecies once existed: the early Christian Shepherd of Hermas (2nd century) quotes it, "The Lord is near to those who return to him, as it is written in Eldad and Modat." The book itself is lost.

"Two cubits" deep?

The quail lie "about two cubits" (about a meter) "upon the face of the earth." Read literally, that is a heap of birds a meter deep. Many translations and commentators read it instead as the height at which the birds flew, low and exhausted, about a meter above the ground, where they could be caught by hand. The Hebrew allows both readings, and the Greek and Latin are just as brief. Each person gathered at least "ten homers," a huge amount, which may also be a deliberate picture of excess.