Quails at the Graves of Craving

A little while afterward Moses rose up and left Mount Sinai. After passing through several stopping places, which we will speak of later, he came to a place called Hazeroth. There the people began to mutiny again and to blame Moses for the misfortunes they had suffered in their travels. He had persuaded them to leave a good land, they said, and they had lost that land at once; and instead of the happy state he had promised them, they were still wandering in their miserable condition. They were already short of water, and if the manna should happen to fail, they must then perish completely. [a]

Yet while they were saying many bitter things against him, there was one of them who urged them not to forget Moses and the great pains he had taken for their common safety, and not to despair of help from God. At this the people became still more unruly and mutinous against Moses than before. Then Moses, although they had abused him so shamefully, encouraged them in their despair and promised that he would get them a supply of meat, and that not for a few days only but for many days. They would not believe this. And when one of them asked where he could find enough of what he was promising for so many tens of thousands, he replied: “Neither God nor I will give up our labors for you, though we hear such abusive language from you; and this too will soon be plain.”

As soon as he had said this, the whole camp was filled with quails. The people stood around them and gathered great numbers. But it was not long before God punished the Hebrews for their presumption and for the insults they had used toward him: no small number of them died. To this day the place keeps the memory of this destruction and is named Kibroth-hattaavah, that is, the Graves of Craving.