Numbers 11:31

Summary

A wind originating "from with" Yehovah sets in motion a mass movement of quails from the sea, depositing them around the Israelite camp. The text specifies the area covered — roughly a day's journey in each direction — and the height at which the birds lay, about two cubits above the ground.

Key words

• Ruach ("a wind", H7307) — feminine singular noun, the subject that "sets out"; the text does not call it a miracle-wind explicitly, only "a wind" linked to Yehovah via the preposition me'et ("from with").
• nasa ("it set out", H5265) — qal perfect, describing the wind's own departure/travel, not directly "sent" (contrast with the LXX's exit-verb).
• yagoz ("it brought/swept", H1468) — qal narrative form (vayyiqtol), continuing the story-sequence; its core sense involves cutting through or driving, describing how the quails were carried.
• derekh ("journey of", H1870) — construct noun repeated twice (derekh yom koh... derekh yom koh), building the spatial description through duplication rather than a single phrase.
• ammatayim ("two cubits", H0520) — dual form, marking a paired unit of measure (a "two-cubit" span), used to state the height at which the quails were found above the ground.

What the text says

The verse opens with ve-ruach ("and a wind") as subject of the qal perfect nasa ("it set out"), followed by me'et Yehovah ("from with Yehovah") — a prepositional phrase indicating origin/association rather than a passive "sent by." The narrative then shifts into a chain of vav-consecutive (narrative vav) verbs — vayyagoz ("and it swept/brought") and vayyittosh ("and it left/dropped") — which advance the action step by step: wind departs, sweeps quails from the sea, drops them at the camp.

The spatial extent of the quail-fall is expressed through a doubled construct phrase: ke-derekh yom koh... u-khe-derekh yom koh ("about a journey of a day, thus... and about a journey of a day, thus"), using the adverb koh ("thus/here") twice to indicate the two directions or the encompassing span, followed by sevivot ha-machaneh ("[the] surroundings of the camp", a construct plural). The height detail closes the verse: ke-ammatayim al-penei ha-aretz, using the dual ammatayim ("two cubits") governed by the preposition al ("above") and the construct penei ("surface of") plus ha-aretz ("the ground").

Differences between versions

The Hebrew nasa ("it set out", H5265) describes the wind's own movement, while the LXX uses ἐξῆλθεν ("it went out") and the Vulgate egrediens ("going out") — both emphasizing exit rather than the Hebrew's more general "traveling" sense. For yagoz (H1468, "it swept/brought"), the LXX's ἐξεπέρασεν ("it brought across/carried through") and Vulgate's arreptans... detulit ("seizing... it carried down") render the driving action differently, with the Vulgate adding "arreptans" (seizing), an image not present in the Hebrew verb itself. The Hebrew's doubled koh... koh construction (marking directional extent) is condensed in both LXX and Vulgate into a single phrase for "a day's journey," without preserving the doubling.