VARIOUS BOUNTIES (VERSE NO. 57)

      By the verses: S 5: 23-25, we understand that after the PASS OVER, God commanded the Israelties to set out for PALESTINE, and enter the Holy Land which Allah had assigned unto them.

      They disobeyed the commandment saying: ``O Moses! In this land are a people tyrant, and of exceeding strength. We shall not enter the land until they leave it. They even did not stop by saying so; and gave a reply to Moses which was full of irony, insolence and blasphemy! They added: You think too much of your God! If HE is so, then go with your Lord and fight them. We shall sit here on watch! What else should Moses do, but to pray to his Lord God asking HIS help? He said: O, My Lord! I have power only over myself, and my brother. So separate us from these rebellious people.''

      The punishment for the rebellion of these obstinate, stiff-necked people was that they were left to wander distractedly hither and thither through the wilderness for forty years!

      Some of them repented and returned back to obedience and faith, and God the Oft-Forgiving and Merciful pardoned them again, and bestowed on them of HIS bounties:

      ``And We outspread the cloud to overshadow you, and sent down to you Manna and Quails. Eat of the good things, that WE have provided for you.

WHAT IS MANNA & QUAIL?

      Some commentators understand MANNA to be some sort of a natural honey that the Israelites could find in bulk in that extensive desert. This idea is in agreement with what some of the expounders of the Scripture have written that:

``The Holy Land is surrounded with various kinds of blossoms, flowers and vegetations; so much so that the honey bees always make their hives in the clefts of the stones and on the branches of the trees, here and there, and in the house, so that the poorest of the people too, can have access to honey and hive!''

      As to QUAILS, the commentators know it to be a kind of small BIRD (like pigeon) that were found in abundance there about in that desert. Some expounders of the BIBLE, say that: ``A large flight of them are driven by winds from Africa towards the NORTH, and in the island of CAPRI, and in one of these flights, more than sixteen thousands of the birds were captured. This sort of a bird which has travelled a very long distance upon the sea, towards the Back Gulf, up to SUEZ CANAL and then to the desert of Sinai must have been very tired and weary so as to be captured easily by hands.''

(In the OLD - TESTAMENT, about MANNA & QUAILS we read: ``The LORD said to Moses: I have heard the complaints of the Israelties. Tell them that at twilight they will have meat to eat, and in the morning they will have all the bread they want - Then they will know that, I, the lord, am their God. In the evening a large flock of QUAILS flew in, enough to cover the camp, and in the morning there was dew all round the camp. When the dew evaporated, there was something thin and flaky on the surface of the desert. It was as delicate as frost. (TRANSLATOR'S NOTE)

EXODUS - 16: 12-15