Numbers 11:32
The people therefore rising up all that day, and night, and the next day, gathered together of quails, he that did least, ten cores: and they dried them round about the camp.
Open Numbers 11:32 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Surgens ergo populus toto die illo, et nocte, ac die altero, congregavit coturnicum : qui parum, decem coros : et siccaverunt eas per gyrum castrorum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἀναστὰς ὁ λαὸς ὅλην τὴν ἡμέραν καὶ ὅλην τὴν νύκτα καὶ ὅλην τὴν ἡμέραν τὴν ἐπαύριον, καὶ συνήγαγον τὴν ὀρτυγομήτραν· ὁ τὸ ὀλίγον συνήγαγεν δέκα κόρους· καὶ ἔσφαξαν ἑαυτοῖς ψυγμοὺς κύκλῳ τῆς παρεμβολῆς.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיָּ֣קָם הָעָ֡ם כָּל הַיּוֹם֩ הַה֨וּא וְכָל הַלַּ֜יְלָה וְכֹ֣ל י֣וֹם הַֽמָּחֳרָ֗ת וַיַּֽאַסְפוּ֙ אֶת הַשְּׂלָ֔ו הַמַּמְעִ֕יט אָסַ֖ף עֲשָׂרָ֣ה חֳמָרִ֑ים וַיִּשְׁטְח֤וּ לָהֶם֙ שָׁט֔וֹחַ סְבִיב֖וֹת הַֽמַּחֲנֶֽה
Haydock's commentary
Cores. Hebrew, "Chomarim," each of contained 100 gomers. One gomer was the daily allowance of manna for each person, and of course there must have been sufficient quails for one hundred days. But Moses tells us that each one collected at least ten times that quantity, or as much has he could eat for 1,000 days. Bochart therefore supposes, that only each family, of ten people, gathered so much: or the Hebrew should be rendered heaps, as the core, or chomer, is not a proper measure for birds, but for corn and liquors. The Septuagint, Syriac, &c., have "heaps." We need not have recourse to a new creation of these birds, as their numbers are very surprising. (Pliny, [Natural History?] x. 23.) In Italy above 100,000 have been caught in one day, within the space of 5,000 paces. (Blond.) The Psalmist compares the numbers brought on this occasion, to the dust, or to the sand of the sea-shore, Psalm lxxvii. 27.
Dried them in the sun, having first salted them, as the Egyptians did. (Calmet) (Athenæus.)
Many quails are found in Egypt, and around the Arabian Gulf. (Josephus, [Antiquities?] iii.) (Du Hamel)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John, Again on the Same Passage
1. The Lord, by His promise, gave those whose hopes were resting on Himself a special ground of confidence, when He said, “For I go to the Father; and whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, I will do it.” His proceeding, therefore, to the Father, was not with any view of abandoning the needy, but of hearing and answering their petitions. But what is to be made of the words, “Whatsoever ye shall ask,” when we behold His faithful ones so often asking and not receiving? Is it, shall we say, for no other reason but that they ask amiss? For the Apostle James made this a ground of reproach when he said, “Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” What one, therefore, wishes to receive, in order to turn to an improper use, God in His mercy rather refuses to bestow. …