The quails came up So tame that they might be taken up, as many as they pleased. Although Ludolph has offered several arguments in his Ethiop. Hist. (l. 1. c. 13) to prove that the Hebrew word שׂלו , selav, here used, ought to be rendered locusts; it is certain, from Psalms 78:27, that birds of some kind are meant: He rained flesh upon them as dust, and feathered fowl as the sand of the sea. Buxtorf renders the word coturnices, quails. And Parkhurst, deriving the word from שׂלה, to be tranquil, or to rest, considers it as signifying a kind of bird that lived remarkably in ease and plenty among the corn. And, it seems, among the Egyptians a quail was an emblem of ease and plenty. It was also esteemed a dainty, and would probably rather be sent at this time than the locusts, which, though used for food, could hardly be termed flesh. According to Josephus, “there are more of this kind of birds about the Arabian gulf than any others. And flying over the sea,” he says, “and being weary, and coming nearer the ground than other birds, they took them with their hands, as food prepared for them of God.” But Josephus's representation of the matter by no means comes up to the view of it given by Moses, (Numbers 11:31,) who says, that a wind went forth from the Lord and brought them from the sea, and let them fall round about the camp, a day's journey on each side, and that they lay “two cubits high on the face of the earth.”
In the morning the dew lay Hebrews שׁכבת השׂל shick-bath hattal, a layer, or bed of dew. With this, it appears, the manna was covered: to which the expression, hidden manna, (Revelation 2:17,) seems to allude.