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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Exodus 16:13 - 16:13
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The same evening (according to Exo 16:12, “between the two evenings,” vid., Exo 12:6) quails came up and covered the camp. עָלָה: to advance, applied to great armies. הַשְּׂלָו, with the article indicating the generic word, and used in a collective sense, are quails, ὀρτυγομήτρα (lxx); i.e., the quail-king, according to Hesychius ὄρτυξ ὑπερμεγέθης, and Phot. ὄρτυξ μέγας, hence a large species of quails, ὄρτυγες (Josephus), coturnices (Vulg.). Some suppose it to be the Katà or the Arabs, a kind of partridge which is found in great abundance in Arabia, Palestine, and Syria. These fly in such dense masses that the Arab boys often kill two or three at a time, by merely striking at them with a stick as they fly (Burckhardt, Syr. p. 681). But in spring the quails also come northwards in immense masses from the interior of Africa, and return in autumn, when they sometimes arrive so exhausted, that they can be caught with the hand (cf. Diod. Sic. i. 60; v. Schubert, Reise ii. p. 361). Such a flight of quails was now brought by God, who caused them to fall in the camp of the Israelites, so that it was completely covered by them. Then in the morning there came an “effusion of dew round about the camp; and when the effusion of dew ascended (i.e., when the mist that produced the dew had cleared away), behold there (it lay) upon the surface of the desert, fine, congealed, fine as the hoar-frost upon the ground.” The meaning of the ἁπ. λεγ. מְחֻסְפָּס is uncertain. The meaning, scaled off, scaly, decorticatum, which is founded upon the Chaldee rendering מְקַלֵּף, is neither suitable to the word nor to the thing. The rendering volutatum, rotundum, is better; and better still perhaps that of Meier, “run together, curdled.” When the Israelites noticed this, which they had never seen before, they said to one another, הוּא מָן, τί ἐστι τοῦτο (lxx), “what is this?” for they knew not what it was. מָן for מָה belongs to the popular phraseology, and has been retained in the Chaldee and Ethiopic, so that it is undoubtedly to be regarded as early Semitic. From the question, man hu, the divine bread received the name of man (Exo 16:31), or manna. Kimchi, however, explains it as meaning donum et portio. Luther follows him, and says, “Mann in Hebrew means ready money, a present or a gift;” whilst Gesenius and others trace the word to מָנָה, to divide, to apportion, and render הוּא מָן “what is apportioned, a gift or present.” But the Arabic word to which appeal is made, is not early Arabic; and this explanation does not suit the connection. How could the people say “it is apportioned,” when they did not know what it was, and Moses had to tell them, it is the bread which Jehovah has given you for food? If they had seen at once that it was food sent them by God, there would have been no necessity for Moses to tell them so.