Commentaria in Numeros
Verse 26. “They had been enrolled,” that is, they were also among the enrolled, namely the 70 men who, passing over to Moses, were to assist him. Otherwise Alliolt: They were among the princes of the people, from among whom the seventy helpers of Moses had been chosen by lot. Although the lot had not fallen upon them, yet they prophesied equally.
Verse 27. “Eldad and Medad prophesy in the camp.”
The Jews fable that these two were brothers of Moses, that is, by the same father Amram, but by another mother. For Amram, after the giving of the law, Leviticus xviii, 12, put away his wife Jochabed, as being his own aunt, and then took another, and begot of her Eldad and Medad. But, to pass over other things which Abulensis heaps together here, if this were true, Eldad and Medad would at this time have been infants of one year; how then should they have prophesied? For that law, Leviticus xviii, was given in this same year, which was the second after the departure from Egypt.
Note “in the camp”; for sixty-eight others were prophesying in the presence of Moses in the tabernacle, and Josue saw it: whence he did not envy them, because he saw that it was by the will and doing of Moses that they prophesied, and that no honour of Moses was lost through them, as they were joined to Moses and subject to him, and received this spirit from him; but the other two, prophesying in the camp, were separated from Moses, and prophesied in his absence and without his knowledge, at least as Josue thought: whence Josue feared that they might injure the authority and glory of Moses. So Abulensis.
There formerly existed a book of the oracles of Eldad and Medad, from which Hermas, the disciple of Paul, in the first book called the Shepherd, chap. ii, has this: “The Lord is nigh unto them that turn to him, as it is written in Eldad and Medad, who prophesied to the people in the wilderness.”
Verse 28. “Forthwith Josue the son of Nun, the minister of Moses, and chosen out of many,” “said.” For although Moses had many servants, yet he had none more faithful, more familiar, and more strenuous than Josue, whence also Moses designated him as his successor: “My lord Moses, forbid them.” Josue said this from some emulation or envy, fearing, namely, that the glory and authority of Moses would be diminished if others also prophesied equally with Moses, especially in the camp, without the knowledge or against the will of Moses, as Josue thought. Yet this fault was venial, because he regarded not his own glory but that of Moses his leader and lord, and the good of the people. This is plain from the answer of Moses. The Chaldee renders it, “send them to prison,” and so it can be translated from the Hebrew.
For “chosen out of many,” many with the Syriac translate the Hebrew “from his youth,” which does not displease.
Verse 29. “But he said: Why hast thou emulation for me? Who would grant that all the people might prophesy?” Let all Prelates, Doctors and preachers imitate this spirit of charity, who seek not their own glory but that of God alone, and who ask what Martha asked.
For “emulatest,” Maurer translates “thou wilt defend”; that is, Did I bid thee be the defender and champion of my right?
This is a generous and kingly mind, which shares its honours with friends: so Alexander, when the captive wife of Darius had saluted Hephaestion in place of Alexander, and, having discovered her mistake, was ashamed, said: “Thou hast not erred; he also is Alexander.” Again, to the son of Mazaeus, whose favour with Darius had been the highest, and who was governor of a satrapy, he added a second, larger. But he, refusing, said: “Then, O king, there was one Darius; now thou hast made many Alexanders.” So Plutarch in the Life of Alexander.
Verse 30. “And Moses returned into the camp,” that is, he went out from the tabernacle, which was in the midst of the camp, to the surrounding camps of the people themselves.
A wind, freshly produced by the Lord, beyond the order of nature, blew the quails. A like phrase is in Genesis i, 2 and Exodus x, 19. This was another sending of quails from that of which Exodus xvi, 13 speaks. For that happened shortly after the departure out of Egypt, in the first year, at the eighth station, which was in Sin; this, however, happened in the second year, at the thirteenth station, which was at the Graves of Lust. “Taking them beyond the sea” (the Red Sea, which they had already crossed), “it brought quails.” Whence, in Psalm lxxvii, 26, this wind that blew the quails is said to have been the Africus, or Libyan wind, which is partly west, partly south; for the Red Sea in such a position faced the desert. Whence also Josephus asserts that these quails were blown not from the Ortygian islands, which were far away (for they lay in Greece), but from the Arabian Gulf, which abounds with them. This wind, therefore, was not so much natural as miraculous, and a work of the power of God. For Pliny, book X, chap. xxi, asserts that quails naturally fly when the wind blows, not from the South, as being moist and heavier, but from the North. Note: this wind, and consequently these quails, were blown by an angel, or rather by many angels: nay, Abulensis thinks that single quails were brought by single angels. For one angel, he says, could not extend his impulsive power through many, since they were discontinuous. But this is false; for in that case many thousands, nay millions of angels would have been occupied in this bringing of quails: the same angel, therefore, could bring many, namely all that were within the sphere of his activity, even if they were discontinuous. For if men can move several discontinuous things at once, much more can angels.
“Quails.” The Septuagint renders it ortygometra; so also our Interpreter in Wisdom xvi, 2: for although Ulysses Aldrovandus distinguishes the ortygometra from the quail, yet Scripture takes them for the same here and elsewhere.
You will ask, why are quails called ortygometra?
First, Isidore, Etymologies, book XII, chap. vi, and Abulensis give this reason, that this bird was first seen in the Ortygian islands, whence it is called ortyx;
Abulensis and others give this reason, that this bird was first seen in the Ortygian islands, whence it is called ortygometra.
Secondly, Jansenius, on Wisdom xvi, answers that the ortygometra is called the leader of the quails, because it is the metron, that is, the measure and regulator of the quails; but the Greek letters do not agree here, since metron is written with epsilon and the other word with another vowel.
Thirdly, therefore, and genuinely, it is called ortygometra as it were ortygon meter, that is, the mother of quails, or metra, that is, the matrix; whence Aristotle also, in book VIII of the History of Animals, calls it simply by the Greek name for quail.
For the ortygometra is the very king of the quails, which, larger and blacker than the other quails, goes before the rest; and they follow it as their leader, no otherwise than bees their king. Understand, therefore, the whole army of quails to be under a leader; for where the leader is, there is the army. Whence Isidore: “The ortygometra,” he says, “is the quail that leads the flock”; and Pliny calls it “the leader of the quails”; whence in French we commonly call it roi ou mère des cailles.
Fourthly, Hesychius in his Lexicon, and Peter Nannius on Wisdom xvi: I see, he says, that this syllable is joined to certain animals when the larger of that kind are designated, as the echinometra is a larger and spinier echinus, of which Pliny, book IX, chap. 21; the leonimetra is a larger lion, of which Gesner under the lion; so the ortygometra is a larger quail. For it is very likely that these miraculous quails, as the work of God, were larger and more excellent than others. But in that case they would rather be called ortygometrae in the plural, whereas the word is used in the singular; wherefore the third explanation already given is truer and more solid.
You will ask secondly, why God, when the Hebrews asked for flesh, gave them quails rather than doves, geese, and the like? I answer first, because quails were at hand in abundance; for they abound in the Arabian Gulf, which was near to the Hebrews, as Josephus testifies. Secondly, because the flesh of quails is excellent and delicate, especially in that place; and it becomes God to give excellent things. So Abulensis.
Galen and Aldrovandus add that quails cure epilepsy, and that therefore Hercules carried quails with him wherever he went, that by them he might cure his epilepsy; whence the Poet:
The quail preserved the strenuous Hercules.