Commentaria in Exodum
11. AND THE LORD SPOKE TO MOSES—alone; for while Aaron was addressing the people, Moses, about to pray to the Lord (called by him silently), had withdrawn to his secret place outside the camp, namely to the pillar of the cloud.
12. IN THE EVENING YOU SHALL EAT FLESH (quails), AND IN THE MORNING YOU SHALL BE FILLED WITH BREAD,—manna. Allegorically, the evening here signified the evening, that is, the obscurity of the law, immolating the flesh of animals, about to pass in the morning into the heavenly bread, that is, Christ, who is the light and manna of the world. So Cyril, book 3 on John, and Rupert.
Secondly, as Origen and St. Augustine, Questions 60, it was signified that toward the evening of the world the Word would be made flesh, die and be buried through infirmity; but in the morning would rise by power, and appear to his disciples, eating with them and feeding them.
13. SO IT CAME TO PASS IN THE EVENING, THAT QUAILS COMING UP COVERED THE CAMP.—“Coming up,” that is, coming and flying thither; “quail,” that is, a multitude of quails, and that by a blowing wind, as is said Psalm 77:26 and 27, which cast them down so that they fell in the midst of the camp, as appears Psalm 77:28. This sending of quails did not last, as manna did, for forty years (as is said in verse 35); but happened only on this one evening, on which nevertheless the Hebrews could gather and keep quails for several days. After this evening, therefore, on the following days no quails flew to the camp.
Note: Twice God gave quails to the Hebrews, first here; secondly, Num. 11:31, at the graves of lust.
AND IN THE MORNING, A DEW LAY ROUND ABOUT THE CAMP.—In Hebrew it is, in the morning there was a lying down, or bed of dew, as if to say: In the morning the whole plain was strewn and covered with dew, so that the dew lay upon it as upon a bed. This dew was the manna, which is called dew because it was like dew and crystalline drops gathered into the form of coriander seed. So Nyssen, Philo, Josephus. For manna was not like a dewy and liquid moisture, but like something coagulated and congealed; whence in verse 14 it is said to have been like frost; manna was therefore like congealed dew, that is, like grains of hail or hoar-frost, which is formed when the cold of night thickens and divides the vapour into little grains: so also our manna (though far different from this heavenly manna), which in many places even today forms on the leaves of shrubs, and is diligently gathered by physicians, and is called by Galen drosomeli and aeromeli, that is, dewy honey and aerial honey (which is nothing else than the breath of water and earth, drawn out thin and exhaled by the heat of the sun, and gathered and thickened into one by the cold of the following night), before it melts at the sun’s heat, has the appearance of frost.
Otherwise, namely properly, the Hebrews, Lyranus, Vatablus, Oleaster and Cajetan understand dew here: for they think that dew came down at the same time with the manna, to cover the manna; and when in the morning the dew vanished at the rays of the sun, it uncovered, and left the manna alone to be gathered by the Hebrews: the manna therefore was enclosed both above and below by dew, as in a case. This thing the Jews still today represent at their table by a certain sign, putting bread between two table-cloths. The version of the Chaldee and Vatablus favours this opinion, who render: there was a covering of dew, and when it had ascended, that is, been absorbed by the sun and disappeared (and, as the Septuagint has it, katapausan, that is, when it had ceased, say some) the dew, behold on the surface of the desert something small and round appeared.
From this opinion, which is probable, a beautiful allegory of the Eucharist may be gathered: for as this dew covered the manna, so the species of bread cover the body of Christ; and as when the dew vanished the manna appeared, so when the species of bread in the Eucharist are set aside by faith, the faithful mind ascends to see and taste the very body of Christ.
But our version seems to be repugnant to this opinion, in the following verse, where it plainly explains this dew, and says it was the manna itself: for the Hebrew vattaal, that is, it went up, which others interpret: it vanished into vapour at the rays of the sun, our Interpreter renders: “And when it had covered the face of the earth”; for it went up by covering the earth: for in like manner a little before he said that the quails went up and covered the camp.
Secondly, when the sun grew hot, the manna melted and vanished, as dew is wont to vanish: whence the Hebrews had to gather manna before the sun, early in the morning. Therefore it does not seem true what the Hebrews say, that the hot sun consumed the dew and left the manna untouched.
Thirdly, to what purpose would this dew have covered the manna? for manna was in itself clean, and could not be defiled from above by rain, snow and hail (God containing and averting these): it is therefore far truer that this dew was nothing other than the manna. So Abulensis.
Thou wilt say: Num. 11:9 it is said: “And when the dew fell in the night upon the camp, the manna also fell with it.”
I answer that dew is there taken for frost, which did not cover the manna, but was laid under it, that the manna might not be defiled by touching the earth; whence the Hebrew, Chaldee and Septuagint have, the manna also went up upon it, namely the dew, that is, the congealed dew, the frost just mentioned.
Abulensis notes that probably God thus rained manna: first he sent a wind, to purge the surface of the earth of waters, vapours and like things, so that no waters or filth might remain on it which could stain the manna; then he rained down a chill frost, formed into little grains; lastly upon the frost he rained down manna, as appears Num. 11:9.
The earth therefore was as a bed, the frost or dew congealed was as a clean linen, on which the manna lay. Whence in the Hebrew the manna here and in Num. 11 is said to lie on the earth and on the dew, so that this frost or dew was beneath the manna itself as a veil, as the species of bread in the Eucharist are the veil of the body of Christ.
14. SOMETHING SMALL APPEARED IN THE WILDERNESS.—Hence it is plain that manna did not rain in the camps of the Hebrews, because they were foul; but outside the camp in the desert, or in the field, as is said in verse 25. Whence in verse 27 the Hebrews are said to have gone out of the camp to find and gather it in the desert.
SMALL, AND AS IT WERE BEATEN WITH A PESTLE, LIKE UNTO THE HOAR FROST ON THE GROUND.—Not that the manna, when it came down from heaven, was beaten with a pestle and reduced to powder or flour: for this the Hebrews did afterwards, grinding it in a mortar or mill when they made cakes of it, as appears Num. 11:8; but “as it were beaten with a pestle,” that is, hulled by the pounding of a pestle, and stripped of its husks, as if to say: The manna was white like wheat from which the husk has been taken off by pestle or mill: for Scripture always commends manna for its white colour. Whence in Numbers 11:7 it is said to have been of the colour of bdellium. Hence the Septuagint for “beaten with a pestle” render leukon, that is, white, and the Chaldee renders, as it were hulled, and this agrees with the Hebrew mechuspas. For although this word is found nowhere else, yet because it has a root of four letters, it is by custom to be reduced to one of three letters, namely to chasaph, that is, to strip bare, to husk; whence it is a wonder that recent writers render mechuspas round, as though preferring to divine, rather than assent to St. Jerome, the Septuagint, the Chaldee and other ancient and most learned Hebrews.
Furthermore in Num. 11 manna is said to have been in colour like bdellium; and bdellium is a kind of gum, or pellucid tear. Whence the Septuagint render, like crystal, as if to say: The manna was whitish as crystal. The Hebrew bedolach, that is, bdellium, Pagninus renders pearl, others onyx: as if the manna had been in colour like a pearl, or onyx, that is, the colour of a nail. Such indeed is bdellium, especially the Bactrian, which is the most praised of all: Pliny is authority, book 12, chap. 9, and Dioscorides, book 1, chap. 69. The white manna therefore signified the Eucharist, in which the species of white bread represent the white and immaculate body of Christ, and in the thing itself exhibit it.
15. THEY SAID ONE TO ANOTHER, MANHU? WHICH SIGNIFIETH: WHAT IS THIS?—Hence in Hebrew it was called Man, or mann, and in Chaldee manna. The Hebrew man Vatablus renders a gift. For when, he says, the Hebrews could not give it a proper name, they gave it the generic name man, that is, gift, as if they should say man hu, that is, this is a great and heavenly gift, promised to us by God, verse 4.