Commentary on Psalms Volume 3 John Calvin
COMMENTARY ON PSALMS - VOLUME 3 for the deer 190 and the rocks are a place of shelter for the hedgehogs. 191
16. The trees of Jehovah shall be satiated The Psalmist again treats of God's general providence in cherishing all the parts of the world. In the
the original word for the stork, is from,חסדpiety, beneficence, because, says Bythner, "the stork nourishes, supports, and carries on its back, when weary, its aged parents." Storks are a species of birds very numerous in Palestine, and other eastern countries. Doubdan thus speaks of them in his account of a journey from Cana to Nazareth in Galilee, (page 513,) "All these fields were so filled with flocks of storks, that they appeared quite white with them, there being above a thousand in each flock, and when they rose and hovered in the air they seemed like clouds. The evening they rest in trees." This account is confirmed by Dr Shaw, who informs us, that as he lay at anchor near Mount Carmel, he saw "three flights of them, some of which were more open and scattered, with larger intervals between them; others were closer and more compact, as in the flight of wrens and other birds, each of which took up more than three hours in passing by us, extending itself at the same time more than half a mile in breadth." — See his Travels, volume 2, page 269. The stork constructs her nest with exquisite skill of dry twigs of trees and coarse grass from the marsh. But instead of confining herself to one situation, she builds it sometimes on the highest parts of old ruins and houses, — sometimes in the canals of ancient aqueducts, and sometimes on the tops of the eastern mosques and dwelling-houses; so very familiar is she by being never molested, the Mahometans accounting it profane to kill, or even to hurt, or disturb this species of bird, because of their important services in clearing the country of serpents, and other venomous animals, on which they feed. She frequently retires from the noise and bustle of the town to the adjacent field, selecting the highest tree of the forest on which to build her nest, and always preferring the fir, when it is equally suitable to her purpose — Ibid. volume 2, page 272. Harmer remarks, that,חסידהchasidah, seems to signify the heron as well as the stork; and Dr Adam Clarke is of opinion, that the heron is here meant, conceiving the description of its making the fir-tree its house, as other bird.make their nests in the cedars of Lebanon, to be more agreeable to its natural history than to that of the stork properly speaking. He farther observes, that Aquila, who has given us an ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, and who is said to have been exquisitely skilled in the original language, always understood the chasidah to mean the heron, rather than the stork. "But," he adds, "the two species resemble each other so much, that it is not improbable but one Hebrew word stood for both," and refers to Doubdan, who supposes that storks in Palestine roost in trees — Harmer's Observations, volume 2, page 465, and volume 3, page 338.
"On, chevreux." — Fr. marg. "Or, the kids." Calvin, by giving two different translations of the original word, appears to have been at a loss as to the animal meant. "The animal here intended," says Mant, "is the Ibex or Rock Goat, a species of wild goat, deriving its Hebrew name from the wonderful manner in which it mounts to the top of the highest rocks, to which quality the sacred writers allude in the other two passages where the word occurs as well as in this. — See 1 Samuel 24:3; Job 39:1. To this quality natural historians bear abundant witness. Mr Cox thus describes the action of the Ibex, in ascending the mountains of Switzerland: — 'He mounts a perpendicular rock of fifteen feet at three leaps, or rather three successive bounds of five feet each. It does not seem as if he found any footing on the rock, appearing to touch it merely to be repelled, like an elastic substance striking against a hard body. He is not supposed to take more than three successive leaps in this manner. If he is between two rocks which are near each other, and wants to reach the top, he leaps from the side of one rock to the other alternately, till he has obtained the summit.'"