QUAIL
[Heb., selawʹ; selaywʹ].
The Hebrew selawʹ evidently corresponds to the Arabic and Aramaic names for the quail (salway). The quail is a small plump-bodied bird, about seven inches (17.8 centimeters) in length. It spends most of its time on the ground and its plain colors blend with the earth, brown being predominant, with shadings of buff, white and black. Its flesh is very edible and it is reported that by 1920 Egypt was exporting some three million quails annually to foreign markets, though this exportation has since decreased.
The birds described in the Bible are evidently the migratory quails (Coturnix coturnix), which move northward from within Africa in the spring, arrive in Egypt about March and thereafter pass through Arabia and Palestine, and return at the approach of winter. They travel in large flocks, making their migration in stages and often flying during the night. Their wings allow for speedy flight but not for very long distances. Due to the heaviness of their bodies in relation to their wing strength, they sometimes arrive at their destination in a state of exhaustion. Quails, therefore, fly with the wind and customarily fly at rather low altitudes. Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen relates that in Port Said (Egypt) men at times use butterfly nets to catch quails as they fly down the streets at dawn.
The first mention of quails in the Biblical account occurs in the spring (Ex. 16:1) when they would be moving north. The Israelites were in the wilderness of Sin on the Sinai Peninsula and complaining about their food supplies. In response, Jehovah assured Moses that “between the two evenings” they would eat meat and in the morning would be satisfied with bread. (Vs. 12) That evening “the quails began to come up and cover the camp,” while in the morning the manna appeared on the earth. (Vss. 13-15; Ps. 105:40) Again, evidently in the spring, about one year later, the grumblings of the Israelites over their limited diet of manna caused Jehovah to foretell that they would eat meat “up to a month of days” until it became revolting to them. (Num. 11:4, 18-23) God then caused a SE wind to drive quails from the sea and caused them to “fall above the camp,” stretching out “like the sand grains” over a wide area for several miles around the camp’s perimeter.—Num. 11:31; Ps. 78:25-28.
The expression “about two cubits [approximately three feet or .9 meter] above the surface of the earth,” has been explained in different ways. (Num. 11:31) Some consider that the quail actually fell to the ground and that in some places they were piled up to that height. Others, objecting that such action would undoubtedly result in a large portion of them dying and hence becoming unfit for eating by the Israelites, understand the text to mean that the quail flew at that low altitude over the ground, thereby making it quite easy for the Israelites to knock them to the ground and capture them. Expressing a similar idea, the Septuagint translation reads: “all around the camp, about two cubits from the earth”; and the Vulgate says: “all around the camp, and they were flying in the air at an altitude of two cubits above the earth.”
The Israelites spent a day and a half gathering the quail; “the one collecting least gathered ten homers [about sixty-two bushels or two hundred and twenty decaliters].” (Num. 11:32) In view of the “six hundred thousand men on foot,” mentioned by Moses (vs. 21), the number of quails collected must have been many millions; hence it was no simple catch resulting from ordinary migration, but, rather, a powerful demonstration of divine power. The quantity collected was too great for eating then; hence the Israelites “kept spreading them extensively all around the camp for themselves.” (Vs. 32) This may have been for the purpose of drying out the meat of the slaughtered quails so as to preserve them for future consumption. Such action would be similar to the ancient Egyptian practice, described by Herodotus, of salting fish and then putting it in the sun to dry out.