| Numbers 11:32
| The people therefore rising up all that day, and night, and the next day, gathered together of quails, he that did least, ten cores: and they dried them round about the camp.
| Cores. Hebrew, "Chomarim," each of contained 100 gomers. One gomer was the daily allowance of manna for each person, and of course there must have been sufficient quails for one hundred days. But Moses tells us that each one collected at least ten times that quantity, or as much has he could eat for 1,000 days. Bochart therefore supposes, that only each family, of ten people, gathered so much: or the Hebrew should be rendered heaps, as the core, or chomer, is not a proper measure for birds, but for corn and liquors. The Septuagint, Syriac, etc., have "heaps." We need not have recourse to a new creation of these birds, as their numbers are very surprising. (Pliny, [Natural History?] 10:23.) In Italy above 100,000 have been caught in one day, within the space of 5,000 paces. (Blond.) The Psalmist compares the numbers brought on this occasion, to the dust, or to the sand of the sea-shore, Psalm 77:27. --- Dried them in the sun, having first salted them, as the Egyptians did. (Calmet) (Athenaeus.) --- Many quails are found in Egypt, and around the Arabian Gulf. (Josephus, [Antiquities?] iii.) (Du Hamel)
|