Psalms Chapter 84 verse 3 Holy Bible
Yea, the sparrow hath found her a house, And the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, Even thine altars, O Jehovah of hosts, My King, and my God.
read chapter 84 in ASV
The little birds have places for themselves, where they may put their young, even your altars, O Lord of armies, my King and my God.
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Yea, the sparrow hath found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she layeth her young, thine altars, O Jehovah of hosts, my King and my God.
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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.
read chapter 84 in KJV
My soul longeth, and even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.
read chapter 84 in WBT
Yes, the sparrow has found a home, And the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young, Near your altars, Yahweh of Hosts, my King, and my God.
read chapter 84 in WEB
(Even a sparrow hath found a house, And a swallow a nest for herself, Where she hath placed her brood,) Thine altars, O Jehovah of Hosts, My king and my God.
read chapter 84 in YLT
Psalms 84 : 3 Bible Verse Songs
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 3. - Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young. Both sparrows and swallows abound in Palestine. Canon Tristram found the nest of a sparrow "so closely allied to our own that it is difficult to distinguish it," in a chink of the Haram wall at Jerusalem, near the Golden Gate ('Land of Israel,' p. 182). An anecdote related by Herodotus (1, 159) shows that sparrows built about the Greek temples. The general meaning of the figure in this place seems to be, "If even birds love to build their nests, as they do, in the sacred precincts, how much more reason has the believing heart to find its home in the house of its God!" But the psalmist thinks it enough to suggest the parallel, and does not stop to carry it out. Even thine altars. The "altar" is put, by metonymy, for the temple itself. O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God (comp. Psalm 5:2).
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(3) Sparrow.--Heb., tsippor, which is found up-wards of forty times in the Old Testament, and is evidently used in a very general way to include a great number of small birds. "Our common house- sparrow is found on the coast in the towns, and inland its place is taken by a very closely-allied species, Passer Cisalpina" (Tristram, Nat. Hist. of the Bible, p. 202).Swallow.--Heb. deror, which by its etymology implies a bird of rapid whirling flight. (See Proverbs 26:2, where this characteristic is especially noticed.) The ancient versions take the word as cognate with "turtle-dove." In an appendix to Delitzsch's Commentary on the Psalms, Dr. J. G. Wetzstein, identifies the tsippor with the osfur of the Arabs, a generic name for small chirping birds, and deror with d-ri. which is specific of the sparrow.Even thy altars.--Better, at or near thine altars, though even if taken as in the Authorised "Version the meaning is the same. There is no real occasion for the great difficulty that has been made about this verse. It is absurd indeed to think of the birds actually nesting on the altars; but that they were found in and about the Temple is quite probable, just as in Herodotus (i. 159) we read of Aristodicus making the circuit of the temple at Branchidae, and taking the nests of young sparrows and other birds. (Comp. the story in 'lian of the man who was slain for harming a sparrow that had sheltered in the temple of 'sculapius.) Ewald gives many other references, and among them one to Burckhardt showing that birds nest in the Kaaba at Mecca.The Hebrew poetic style is not favourable to simile, or the psalmist would have written (as a modern would), "As the birds delight to nest at thine altars, so do I love to dwell in thine house."
