traiislated SwaUoiv in the English Bible. 91 



The altar of burnt-offbrings, indeed, stood in the open air, and 

 could not be covered, as it was constantly in use ; but there no 

 sparrow could make its house, or swallow build its nest, as sacri- 

 fices were offered upon it evening and morning ; and, if either 

 bird should attempt to do so when the priests were absent, it 

 would be effectually prevented as soon as they returned. 



Secondly^ Altars may be taken in a figurative sense for the 

 Tabernacle, if the words are those of David ; or for the Temple, 

 if they are the words of men, posterior to David ; but even this 

 sense, after a careful examination, will be found as untenable as 

 the literal, if the English translation is retained. 



No well informed person can ever bring himself to believe, 

 that the sparrow could make a house, or the swallow a nest, either 

 on the Tabernacle or Temple. There was such a concourse of 

 people about the Tabernacle and Temple, and such a care taken 

 to keep them clean, that birds were hardly allowed to light upon 

 them, far less to build nests upon the sides or corners of them. 



Supposing altars to signify the Temple of Solomon, which 

 stood to the Babylonish captivity, birds could not build their 

 nests upon any part of it, as the pollution of a place so sacred 

 could never be tolerated ; and even if they had attempted to 

 build them, they would have been opposed by the machinery 

 erected on the top, in order to keep them at at a distance. 



In Zerrobabel's Temple, at least, which stood to the time of 

 Herod the Great, and in Herod the Great's Temple, which stood 

 to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, all birds which 

 were disposed to approach the one or the other, were frightened 

 away by the cide oreb, often mentioned in the Talmud, or en- 

 gine that drove away ravens, as the phrase literally signifies, 

 though certainly implying birds in general. 



As there was the same occasion for such a machine while the 

 Tabernacle of Moses and Temple of Solomon stood, it was highly 

 probable, that something of the same kind was erected on some 

 part of the one, as well as the other, though not mentioned by 

 the sacred writers, nor even by Josephus, the Jewish historian. 



He nodces, however, such a machine attached to Herod's 

 Temple ; and Eupolemus, quoted by Eusebius, describes the 

 following as belonging to Solomon's Temple : " Solomon made 

 two brazen nets, furnished with rings ; and set them on beams, 



