You shall drink from the brook. I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.”
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 4. Ravens. Hebrew horebim, ( Bible.) is sometimes rendered “Arabs,” by the Vulg. 2 Chronicles 21:16. Others would translate, “merchants,” or the inhabitants of Arabo, which was near Carith. They suppose that the ravens, being unclean birds, would never have been employed. But they were only forbidden to be eaten or touched, when dead; and God is not restricted by his own laws. He might thus chose to display his wonderful providence. S. Jerom relates how Saint Paul, the first hermit, was fed thus by a raven, with half a loaf a day; and a whole one was sent, when S. Anthony went to see him. Calmet.—Yet Kennicott mentions this as one of the improvements which might be now made in the Protestant version, “the Orbim,” or inhabitants of Oreb, or Orbo. Orbim, accolæ villæ in finibus Arabum Eliæ dederunt alimenta. Jerom iii. 119.—It is not clear to what passage he refers. Diss. ii. p. 581. Another instance occurs, Judges 15:4, where instead of foxes, he would substitute “300 sheaves of corn, placed end to end.” But if there were no mistranslations of great importance, the version might subsist. Bible.