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There are two words which have been translated
as Swallow in the Authorized Version of the Bible, these being deror
and
agar.
Students
of the Hebrew languange are, however, agreed that the latter word has been
wrongly applied, the translators having interchanged the signification
of two contiguous words.
Looking therefore at the word deror,
this
word signifies liberty, and is well applied to the Swallow, the bird of
freedom. Some of the commentators of old have had differing opinions
on the reason for the title of "the bird of freedom" being given to the
swallow, one having commented upon the bird as being 'so called because
it has the liberty of
building in the houses of mankind.' Another takes
a somewhat similar view
of
.the case, but puts it in a catechetical
form: 'Why is the swallow called the bird of
liberty? Because it lives
both in the house and in the field'. However it is most probable
that the 'liberty' to
which allusion is made is the liberty
of
flight, the bird coming and going at its appointed times, and not being
capable
of
domestication. Several kinds of
Swallow are known
in Palestine, including the true Swallows, the martins, and the swifts,
and it is likely that one of
these groups was distinguished by a
separate name. Whether or not the word deror
included other birds
beside the Swallows is rather doubtful, though not at all unlikely; and
if so, it is probable that any swift-winged insectivorous bird would be
called by the name of
Deror, irrespective
of its size or
colour.
The bee-eaters, for example, are probably
among the number of the birds grouped together under the word deror,
and we may conjecture that the same is the case with the sunbirds,
those bright-plumed little beings that take in the Old World the place
occupied by the humming-birds in the New, and often mistaken for them by
travellers who are not acquainted with ornithology. One of these birds
is described by the biblical scholar HB Tristram as 'a tiny little creature
of gorgeous plumage, rivalling the humming-birds of America in the metallic
lustre of its feathers- green and purple, with brilliant red and orange
plumes under its shoulders.'
In order to account for the singular variety
of animal life which is to be found in Palestine (and, the state of Israel
since its creation in 1948), and especially the exceeding diversity of
species among the birds, we must remember that the area of Palestine and
Israel is a sort of microcosm in itself, comprising within its narrow boundaries
the most opposite conditions of temperature, climate, and soil. Some parts
are rocky, barren, and mountainous, chilly and cold at the top, and
acting as channels through which the winds blow almost continuously. The
cliffs are full of holes, rifts, and caverns, some natural, some artificial,
and some of a mixed kind, the original caverns having been enlarged and
improved by the hand of man.
As a contrast to this rough and ragged
region, there lie close at hand large fertile plains, affording pasturage
for unnumbered cattle, and of a tolerably equable temperature, so that
the animals which are pastured in it can find food throughout the year.
Through this area runs the Jordan, fertilizing its banks with perpetual
verdure, and ending its course in the sulphurous and bituminous waters
of the Dead Sea, under whose waves the ruins of the wicked cities are supposed
to lie. Westward we have the shore of the Mediterranean with its tideless
waves of the salt sea, and on the eastward of the mountain range that runs
nearly prallel to the sea is the great Lake of Tiberias, so large as to
have earned the name of the of the Sea of Galilee.
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