[282] Some expound these words of the previous punishment they are doomed to suffer, according to a tradition of Ibn-Mes´ood, which informs us that their souls are in the crops of black birds which are exposed to hell-fire every morning and evening until the Day of Judgment.—S. (B.) [283] As there is no mention of any such miraculous inundation in the [so-called] Mosaic writings, some have imagined this plague to have been either a pestilence, or the smallpox, or some other epidemical distemper. (B.) For the word ‘ṭoofán,’ which is used in this place, and is generally rendered a ‘deluge,’ may also signify any other universal destruction or mortality.—S. [284] That is, the land of Syria, of which the Eastern geographers reckon Palestine a part, and wherein the commentators say the children of Israel succeeded the kings of Egypt and the Amalekites.—S. (B.) [285] Particularly the lofty tower [before mentioned] which Pharaoh caused to be built, that he might attack the God of Moses.—S. [286] The word here translated ‘body’ signifying also a ‘coat of mail,’ some imagine the meaning to be that his corpse floated armed with his coat of mail, which they tell us was of gold, by which they knew it was he.—S. [287] These people some will have to be of the tribe of Amalek, whom Moses was commanded to destroy, and others of the tribe of Lakhm. Their idols, it is said, were images of oxen, which gave the first hint to the making of the golden calf.—S. (B.) [288] The Eastern writers say these quails were of a peculiar kind of be found nowhere else but in El-Yemen, from whence they were brought by a south wind in great numbers to the Israelites’ camp in the desert. The Arabs called these birds ‘selwa,’ which is plainly the same with the Hebrew ‘salwim,’ and say they have no bones, but are eaten whole.—S. [289] The word here rendered ‘a great city,’ namely ‘miṣran,’ is rendered by Marracci and Sale ‘Egypt,’ and is so understood by many learned Arabs; but according to a general rule, to have this signification it should be ‘miṣra:’ in some copies of the Ḳur-án, however, it is thus written. [290] See Sale’s note _in loc._ [291] A kind of soft stone, like dry mud.