"My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.
"Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even Thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God."
It is evident that we have in this passage a different bird from the Sparrow that sitteth alone upon the house-tops; and though the same word, tzippor, is used in both cases, it is clear that whereas the former bird was mentioned as an emblem of sorrow, solitude, and sadness, the latter is brought forward as an image of joy and happiness. "Blessed are they," proceeds the Psalmist, "that dwell in Thy house: they will be still praising Thee.... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness."
According to Mr. Tristram, this is probably one of the species to which allusion is made by the Psalmist. While inspecting the ruins in the neighbourhood of the Temple, he came upon an old wall. "Near this gate I climbed on to the top of the wall, and walked along for some time, enjoying the fine view at the gorge of the Kedron, with its harvest crop of little white tombs. In a chink I discovered a sparrow's nest (Passer cisalpinus, var.) of a species so closely allied to our own that it is difficult to distinguish it, one of the very kind of which the Psalmist sung.... The swallows had departed for the winter, but the sparrow has remained pertinaciously through all the sieges and changes of Jerusalem."
THE TREE-SPARROW, OR SPARROW OF SCRIPTURE.
"Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, where she may lay her young."—Ps. lxxxiv. 3.
The same traveller thinks that the Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus) may be the species to which the sacred writer refers, as it is even now very plentiful about the neighbourhood of the Temple. In all probability we may accept both these birds as representatives of the Sparrow which found a home in the Temple. The swallow is separately mentioned, possibly because its migratory habits rendered it a peculiarly conspicuous bird; but it is probable that many species of birds might make their nests in a place where they felt themselves secure from disturbance, and that all these birds would be mentioned under the collective and convenient term of Tzipporim.
As we are engaged upon the word Sparrow, it may be mentioned that several species of Sparrow inhabit Palestine. There is, for example, the common House Sparrow, with which we are so familiar. Then, as has just been described, there is the Tree Sparrow—a bird which is very common in some parts of England, and never seen in others.
Beside these, there is the Marsh Sparrow, or Spanish Sparrow (Passer salicarius), which haunts the banks of the Jordan, and is found there in countless myriads. Mr. Tristram mentions that it builds so plentifully in the thorn-bushes of the Jordan valley, that he has seen the branches borne down by the weight of the nests. The same writer, in remarking upon the difficulty, not to say impossibility, of defining the precise bird which was signified by a Hebrew word, says that, exclusive of the crow tribe, the swifts, cuckoos, rollers, kingfishers, &c., nearly one hundred and fifty species of passerine birds are known to inhabit the Holy Land, any or all of which may be signified by the word tzippor.