Behind | Quail

In Numbers 11:31-32 we’re told that a wind “went out from the Lord and drove quail in from the sea. It scattered them up to two cubits deep all around the camp, as far as a day’s walk in any direction. All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail.”

That’s a lot of quail. Two cubits would be roughly three feet deep, and if we calculate that depth “a day’s walk in any direction” this could amount to literally billions or trillions of quail. But before we question the possibility of this event, we should consider an alternative translation. 

The phrase “two cubit deep” might also be translated “two cubits above the ground.” In this reading we might infer that the wind brought the quail within a few feet of the ground so that they were in reach of the Israelites for easy slaughter. 

Interestingly, this reading would seem to have corroboration in more recent history, and a known natural phenomenon. 

Bible scholar Roy Gane notes, “Large numbers of quail migrate across the Sinai Peninsula from Africa on their way to Europe and Asia. Since these birds have relatively heavy bodies and do not fly well, they partly depend on prevailing winds to assist their flight, and they become exhausted by long journeys.”

A scene similar to the biblical harvests of quail was recorded by the Arab writer Al-Qazwini in the 14th century, and “during the 1900s, Arabs living in northern Sinai used nets to catch one to two million low-flying quail.”

Source: Roy Gane, The NIV Application Commentary: Leviticus, Numbers, 2004, pp. 582-583.