How many quail?

AN OBJECTION ABOUT THE QUAILS (Num. 11:31, 32).—The enemies of the Bible have found a difficulty in the account of the sending of the quails to Israel in the wilderness. Not being concerned to know the truth of the matter, but only to pick holes in the Bible, they have fixed on the words “high upon” in the A.V. and affirmed that the Lord sent them quails “two cubits deep on the ground, over a territory 40 miles across!” And then they go into an elaborate calculation, with much show of fairness and painstaking accuracy, resulting in the demonstration that each Israelite would have 2,888,643 bushels of quails to eat during the month, or at the rate of 69,620 bushels per day. If the Bible’s enemies were a bit modest and teachable, they would not fall into such pits. Why even a decent infidel book would not perpetrate such a blunder as they would make the Bible guilty of! If the Israelites were waist-high in quails, why should they have to “stand up all that day and all that night, and all the next day to gather them?” And how comes it about that, in such a state of things, anybody should gather as little as “ten homers” or about 80 bushels in such a time? It is manifest that this part of the record does not agree with the infidel arithmetic. Some other interpretation must be sought. The slight difficulty introduced by the A.V. rendering—“two cubits high upon the face of the earth,” is removed by the R.V. rendering, which is the correct one—“about two cubits above the face of the earth.” God brought down the quails within arm’s reach, and Israel gathered them as they flew, doubltess catching them in the air, and knocking them down with sticks. This agrees with the quantities mentioned and the fact that there was room to spread them abroad round about the camp, which could not have been the case if they had been half buried in the ridiculous writhing mass of feathered fowl that the hasty enemies of the Bible have imagined, so that they may have another fling at the book. Those who set themselves to the defence of the Word will always have the best of it, both now and in the age to come.—C.C.W.

1889 Christadelphian: Volume 26. 2001 (electronic ed.) (445). Birmingham: Christadelphian Magazine & Publishing Association.