Numbers 11:31–35, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Numbers 11:31–35
Quail Abundance Ends in a Severe Plague
Wind-blown quail, two days of gathering, graves of craving
A wind from the LORD brings quails from the sea, and lets them fall by the camp, a day's journey each side, about two cubits upon the face of the earth. The people rise all that day, the night, and the next day, and gather. The one who gathered least gathers ten homers. They spread them for themselves round the camp.
While the flesh is still between their teeth, before it is chewed, the wrath of the LORD is kindled, and the LORD smites the people with a very great plague. The place is named Kibroth-hattaavah, graves of craving, because there they buried the people that lusted. Then Israel journeys to Hazeroth and remains.
Abundance and plague are both in the story; neither diagnoses your kitchen
The narrative yokes extraordinary meat to sudden death and a cemetery name. It does not explain modern illness, authorize withholding food from hungry people, or let a community stand over the dead and say desire killed them as if grief were a verdict.
Craving in this unit is a wilderness judgment scene, not a public-health chart and not a license to moralize every appetite.
How this should shape us
Do not starve people to prove a spiritual point, and do not read a plague back onto a neighbor's table. If a community remembers a disaster, refuse the cheap explanation that the dead simply wanted too much.
Teach it back
Explain Numbers 11:31–35 in your own words. Include its place in Numbers' movement from Sinai to Moab, both movements within this thought unit, one material uncertainty, one affected person or group, and one use the complete context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: Interpreters debate sources, sequence, motives, provision traditions, divine anger, Moses' speech, miracle claims, and the ethics of punishment. The narrative verdict is explicit; hidden psychology and mechanisms are not. For “Quail Abundance Ends in a Severe Plague,” confidence is strongest in the received unit's stated sequence and literary function; source, date, demography, geography, mechanism, archaeology, and historical reconstruction remain probable, plausible, or uncertain as the evidence warrants.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Numbers 11:31–35, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, numbers, speeches, poems, legal clauses, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Num.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 11:31–35
Supports: Unit-bounded translation, syntax, lexical, ritual, legal, number, name, poetic, and selected textual notes; silence is not evidence.
NET Bible Numbers PDF, complete 134-page PDF, translation and translator notes attached to 11:31–35
Supports: Final-form movement, wilderness setting, census and camp, complaint, leadership, composition, and ethical framing.
Yale Bible Study, Numbers Part 1, complete study guide sections “Introduction,” “At Sinai (1:1–10:10),” “From Sinai to Moab (10:11–22:1),” and “Composition,” applied to Numbers 11:31–35
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: Numbers 11:31–35, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Numbers
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project
Open Scriptures, release 2.2, 2021
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, numbers, speeches, poems, legal clauses, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Num.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 11:31–35
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Numbers with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
eBible.org distribution of the NET Bible, source files dated 2026-08-08
Supports: Unit-bounded translation, syntax, lexical, ritual, legal, number, name, poetic, and selected textual notes; silence is not evidence.
Exact location: NET Bible Numbers PDF, complete 134-page PDF, translation and translator notes attached to 11:31–35
Open source ↗modern critical open study guide
Numbers Part 1
Yale Bible Study
Yale Divinity School, 2023 course edition
Supports: Final-form movement, wilderness setting, census and camp, complaint, leadership, composition, and ethical framing.
Exact location: Yale Bible Study, Numbers Part 1, complete study guide sections “Introduction,” “At Sinai (1:1–10:10),” “From Sinai to Moab (10:11–22:1),” and “Composition,” applied to Numbers 11:31–35
Open source ↗