Kibroth-Hattaavah

(Num. xi. 34, 35.) The margin of our Bibles very properly renders this name by the graves of lust; perhaps from Kerab, turning up, or ploughing. The readers of the Bible may find much spiritual profit from contemplating the graves of lust. Here, we may say, as we tread the ground idea, and tread over the ashes of those lusters, here are the sad records and monuments of those whose examples teach us the effect of dying martyrs to the indulgence of corrupt passions. It is to find death in the pot, when we seek that from thecreature which the Creator only can supply, Oh, how many Kebroth - hattaavahs doth the present world afford, as well as the wilderness to Israel!

Kib´roth-Hatta´avah, an encampment of the Israelites in the wilderness [WANDERING].

The graves of lust, one of the encampments of Israel in the wilderness, where they desired of God flesh for their sustenance, declaring they were tired of manna, Num 11:34,35 33:16. Quails were sent in great quantities; but while the meat was in their mouths, God smote so great a number of them, that the place was called "the graves of those who lusted," Psa 78:30-31, a monument to warn mankind against the sin of discontent, 1Co 10:6 .\par

("graves of lust".) Num 11:34; Num 33:17. At Erweis el Ebeirig near wady el Hudherah (Hazeroth) Israelite remains apparently are found, marking the site of Kibroth Hattaavah. (See WILDERNESS OF WANDERINGS.) Clark makes El Ain to be Kibroth Hattaavah. Laborde makes El Ain to be Hazeroth. The S.E. "wind from the Lord" from the neighbouring Elanitic gulf of the Red" Sea" bore quails so as to "throw them upon" (Hebrew Num 11:31) the encampment and its neighbourhood, "about two cubits above the face of the ground," i.e. not that they were piled up to that height, but the quails wearied with their flight flew so low as to be easily knocked down or caught by the people. The quail flies with the wind and low. The prodigious quantity and the supply of them at that time, in connection with Jehovah’s moral dealings with Israel, constitute the miracle, which is in consonance with God’s natural law though then intensified.

The hot Khamsin or S.E. wind is what quails avail themselves of in their annual flight northwards; the S.W. wind was the extraordinary agent brought in "by the power of God" (Psa 78:26). As Jehovah told them (ver. 20), they ate "a whole month until it came out at their nostrils, and was loathsome" to them. The impossibility, to ordinary view, of such a meat supply for 600,000 men for a month long even to satiety ("He rained flesh upon them as dust, and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea": Psa 78:27), staggered Moses’ faith: "shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them to suffice them? or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them?" (the proximity to the Red "Sea" suggested the "fish," ver. 31; compare Joh 6:7-9). We too often "limit the Holy One of Israel" (Psa 78:41-20-31).

But "while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was consumed" (Speaker’s Commentary for "chewed"), "the wrath of Jehovah smote the people with a very great plague." Feeding on quails for a whole month would of itself be injurious. God punished the gluttonous people through their gluttony which they had indulged in to surfeit; He aggravated the natural consequences into a supernatural visitation. God punishes murmurers by "giving them their request, but sending leanness into their soul" (Psa 106:15). The first supply of quails was on the 15th day of the second month after the Exodus (Exodus 16; Psa 105:40), just before the manna. The second was at Kibroth Hattaavah in the second year after the camp had removed from its 12 months’ stay at Sinai. The Hebrew for "quail" is selaw, and the locality has several places named from it, wady es Selif the E. road, wady Soleif the road to the W. E. Wilton (Imperial Dictionary) fixes on an old cemetery in the wady Berah as Kibroth Hattaavah.

By: Emil G. Hirsch, M. Seligsohn

A station of the Israelites in the wilderness on the journey from Sinai to Kadesh (Num. xi. 34, xxxiii. 16). The name, which means "the graves of lust," was given to the place on account of its being the burial-ground of the multitudes that died through glutting themselves with quail flesh (Num. xi. 34). It would seem from Num. xi. 3, 4, that Kibrothhattaavah was identical with Taberah, which was three days' journey from Sinai (comp. ib. x. 33). In Deut. ix. 22, however, the two stations are mentioned as distinct places. Kibroth-hattaavah is identified by Schwarz ("Das Heilige Land," p. 213) with the modern 'Ain al-Shihabah, in the interior of the desert (comp. Robinson, "Researches," i. 264).

KIBROTH-HATTAAVAH (‘graves of lust,’ Num 11:34; Num 33:16, Deu 9:22).—The march from Taberah (Num 11:3) is not mentioned in Num 23:1-30, but Kibroth-hattaavah was one day’s journey from the wilderness of Sinai. It is placed by tradition to the N. of Naqb el-Hawa (‘mountain path of the wind’), which leads to the plain below the traditional Sinai.

W. Ewing.

kib-roth-ha-tā´a-va, kib-rōth- (התּאוה קברת, ḳibhrōth ha-ta’ăwāh “the graves of greed”): A desert camp of the Israelites, one day’s journey from the wilderness of Sinai. There the people lusted for flesh to eat, and, a great number of quails being sent, a plague resulted; hence, the name (Num 11:34; Num 33:16; Deu 9:22).