The Quails and the Spies

Next comes the book of Leviticus. In it the rules about sacrifice are set out, further commands are added to the law given earlier, and almost the whole book is full of instructions concerning the priests. Anyone who wants to learn about these things will find fuller information there; for we keep within the limits of the work we have undertaken and touch only on the history. The tribe of Levi was set apart for the priesthood, and the rest of the tribes were counted. They were found to number six hundred and three thousand five hundred people. [a]

The people were living on the manna for food, as we related above. Yet even amid so many and such great kindnesses from God, they showed themselves ungrateful as always, and longed for the poor food they had been used to in Egypt. Then the Lord brought an enormous number of quails into the camp. As they were eagerly tearing them to pieces, they died the moment their lips touched the meat. There was a great slaughter in the camp that day, so that twenty-three thousand men are said to have died. So the people were punished by the very food they had craved.

From there the company went on and came to Paran, and Moses was told by the Lord that the land the Lord had promised them as their possession was now near. So spies were sent into it. They reported that it was a land blessed with every kind of plenty, but that its nations were powerful and its towns fortified with huge walls. When this was made known to the people, fear seized all their minds. They went so far in wickedness that they rejected the authority of Moses and prepared to appoint a leader for themselves, under whose guidance they might go back to Egypt. Then Joshua and Caleb, who had been among the spies, tore their clothes in tears and begged the people not to believe the spies who were telling them such terrors. They said that they themselves had been with those men and had found nothing to fear in that country; that the people ought to trust God’s promises; and that these enemies would become their prey rather than their destruction. But that stiff-necked race, setting itself against all good advice, rushed at them to kill them. The Lord was angry at these things. He let part of the people be killed by the enemy, and the spies were killed for having spread fear among the people.