Commentaria in Numeros
Mystically, St. Cyril, book III on John, chap. xxxiv, teaches that the quails signified the old law. “For this bird,” he says, “is never lifted up by its flight, but always flies near the earth. And the discipline of the law is in a certain manner earthly, containing the Jewish offerings of animals and purifications, by which they were not much raised from the earth.” Again Bede, on chap. xvi of Exodus, understands by the quails divinely sent preachings, which pass over through sounding words, as through the air winged creatures, on which by faith are fed those who strive to reach the country of the heavenly kingdom. And he adds: “The food of birds can also signify the sayings of the law, which nourished the carnal people as with flesh, through words divinely sent like winged creatures.”
Tropologically, the migration of quails from one region to another signifies those who esteem themselves pilgrims here, and sigh with their whole heart for heaven. For they fly in flocks and choose a leader of the journey; these rejoice to live together, and follow one leader. They shun the South wind and seek the North: these flee the carnal prosperities of this world, and pursue abstinence and penance. When the leader of the flock has been killed by a hawk, they adopt as leader another of a different kind: these, Adam their parent and leader having been seduced and slain by the devil, choose and follow a leader of another kind and nature, namely Christ. So Aldrovandus, Ornithology, book XIII, chap. xxii.
“He let them fall in the camp,” he made them fall in the camp round about, for the space of one day’s journey (1).
The words “and they flew in the air” are not in the Hebrew text. The Vulgate thought that the quails let themselves down so that they were not more than two cubits from the ground, as though they offered themselves of their own accord to the hands of those who caught them. Others judge that by the Hebrew words it is indicated that heaps two cubits high were scattered here and there, so that empty spaces remained between, through which the people, to gather the quails, could pass.
Abulensis notes that not only the impious murmurers, but also just men ate of these quails. For this was a benefit of God general to all, and given for enjoyment even most of all to the just. For the whole people ate of these quails; nor did any (even if they had murmured before) sin by eating them, unless perhaps by eating them too greedily, but they sinned only by murmuring, and by demanding them in a murmuring way. The same was the case with the manna, which likewise was given because of murmuring: yet afterwards all ate it lawfully for forty years, Exodus xvi. For, as Abulensis says, the people indeed sinned by murmuring in asking for manna and flesh; yet the cause of obtaining it from God was not sin (for the sin of murmuring was not the cause of this thing, but only the occasion), but the goodness of God, and the goodness of certain just men who did not murmur nor ask for food, upon whom God willed to have compassion and to do good liberally. Whence Rabanus says: “The carnal people of the Jews, despising heavenly food, desired flesh, but God so tempered the judgment that he punished the wicked and yet did not deny sustenance to the weak.”
Verse 32. “He gathered a multitude of quails; he that did least gathered ten cors.” A cor contained thirty modii, or measures formerly in common use; ten cors therefore made 300 Roman modii; for each gathered as much as would suffice for food for a month. Now if each gathered so much, consider how immense was the multitude of quails: for those gathering them were easily two million men. Let us suppose that in each modius there were only twenty quails, just as a modius contains twenty pounds of wheat: hence it will follow that each one gathering 300 modii gathered six thousand quails, and consequently that one million men gathered six thousand millions, and two million men twelve thousand millions of quails. Behold how rich in mercy and liberal in his benefits God is: such let us also be in alms. For God here, wishing to satisfy abundantly not only the hunger and gluttony of the Jews, but also the eyes of avarice, gave them so great a store of quails that it could suffice not only for a month, as Moses had promised, verse 20, but for many months. Divide, indeed, six thousand quails by days, assigning to each day twenty-five quails (for who would devour more in one day?), and you will find that six thousand quails sufficed each for food for 240 days, which make eight months. For if in one month they had consumed six thousand, each would have had to devour two hundred quails every day, which not even Polyphemus could have devoured. A month, therefore, he appointed for the eating of them, verse 20, because when the month was over he had determined to chastise this gluttony and murmuring of theirs, and to punish it with death.
“And they dried them.” In Hebrew, spreading, they spread them round about, namely for the sake of drying them, for they ate them for a whole month.
Verse 33. “As yet the flesh was between their teeth, neither had that kind of meat failed (3), and behold the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and struck them with an exceeding great plague.”
A cor contained 984 litres; ten cors therefore amount to a very large measure. But many Catholic interpreters do not understand by the Hebrew word here such cors, a kind of measure containing ten ephas, both on account of the enormous number of quails, and because nobody measures quails by the bushel. And so with Onkelos, both Arabic versions, etc., they render the Hebrew word “heaps.” Cf. Exodus viii, 10.
In the Hebrew it is, “was not yet cut off.”
“Exceeding great,” as if to say: The Hebrews continually fed on flesh, nor did it fail them, namely for a whole month, as the Lord had promised, verse 20; for God willed first to perform his promise before punishing the murmurers; whom at last, at the end of the month, even then with the flesh still sticking in their teeth, he punished with a deadly plague. Hence it seems that most of the murmurers ate these quails gluttonously, and that God punished with death both their gluttony and their murmuring.
“An exceeding great plague.” This plague was of fire, which was afterwards checked by the prayers of Moses and swallowed up, as was said at verse 3. For I showed there that that passage is to be referred to this verse: this plague did not touch the just, but the murmurers alone.
Verse 34. “And he called the name of that place, The graves of lust: for there they buried the people that had lusted” for flesh. Let gluttons, and above all drunkards, often look upon these Graves of lust: who, as they bury reason, so also bury soul and body in wine; whose soul will soon be buried in hell with the rich glutton; and whose flesh, so fattened, will be buried in the belly of worms and toads.
Let them hear that saying of Plutarch: “Luxury in diet is chastised by the punishment of death.” Let them often read the epitaph of Sardanapalus, already buried and rotting:
I have what I ate, and what satiated lust drank in; my riches, and all that once made me blessed, are gone; I am ashes.
This, then, is the fruit of concupiscence, that, as the Apostle says, 1 Timothy vi, 9, it drowns men in destruction and perdition. Wherefore St. Peter, in his second epistle, chap. i, 4, rightly warns us to flee the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world; and Ecclesiasticus xviii, 30: “If thou give to thy soul her desires, she will make thee a joy to thy enemies.” The Emperor Charlemagne ordered a drunkard to be drowned, saying: because this destroyer of wine deserves to be buried not in wine but in water; so that he who has drowned himself in wine may be drowned in water, and with water quench his thirst.
Alexander the Great buried himself in wine, and died: for when he had twice drained a huge cup (it held two congii) that was pledged to him by Proteas, a great drinker, he fell, lay down, and perished; Athenaeus is witness, book X, chap. xi.
So gluttony punished the Israelites with sudden death in the worship of Beelphegor, Numbers xxv; gluttony transferred the birthright from Esau to Jacob, Genesis xxv; gluttony exposed Ela to be slain by the sword of Zambri, 3 Kings xvi, 9; gluttony caused the head of Holofernes to be cut off by Judith; gluttony slew Simon the Machabee with his sons at a banquet, 1 Machabees xvi. Finally, Baltassar, buried in wine, saw the hand writing the sentence of death and ruin: Mane, thecel, phares; and the same night he was stripped of kingdom and life, Daniel, chap. v, verse 25.
Note: Josephus passes over these things in silence, and narrates others differently, as he often does elsewhere, because he writes for the Gentiles, to whom he desires to commend his nation and religion. Hence what could make the nation or religion of the Jews vile and contemptible to the Gentiles, he either omits, or glosses and colours, as Abulensis rightly observes here in the last Question.
“They came to Haseroth.” This is the fourteenth station of the Hebrews in the desert (1).
Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, etc., p. 495, came upon a well called Hhadrah in that tract, which he conjectures to be the same place as is mentioned here.