From the early Church Fathers to now.
1 Jewish · 2 Reformed
“The kite in the air hath known her time: the turtle, and the swallow, and the stork have observed the time of their coming: but my people have not known the judgment of the Lord.”
“Even the stork (Cigogne in French). her seasons The time they pass to the islands of the sea because of the cold, and the time of their return. await Heb. שמרו. and the turtledove and the crane and the swallow Jonathan renders: ושפנינא וכורכיא וּסנוּניתא. כּורכיא is (grue in French), a crane. סנוּניתא is (hirondelle in French), a swallow.”
“Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times,.... Of going and returning; for this is a bird of passage, as Pliny (d) and other naturalists observe; which goes away as winter approaches, and returns when that is over. The temperature of the air, as to heat and cold, and the natural propensity of such birds of passage to breed their young, are thought to be the incentives to change their habitation; and wonderful thing it is in nature, that they should know the proper time of their passage, what places to go to, and how to steer their course thither; and, as the above naturalist observes, they go and come in the night: and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their coming: for these also are birds of passage; the turtle is absent in the winter, and its coming is a sign of spring, Sol 2:11, the crane, according to Aelianus (e), goes away with the stork, and returns when winter is over; and the same is observable of the swallow; hence the common saying, one swallow does not make spring; so Horace (f) uses "hirundine prima" for the beginning of spring. Where these birds retire to is not known; some think the swallows fly into Egypt and Ethiopia; but Olaus Magnus (g) says they lurk in holes, and even under water, where they hang together, and are sometimes drawn out in clusters, and being brought to the fire, and thawed, will revive and fly about. But my people know not the judgment of the Lord; meaning not the unsearchable judgments of God, or those providential dispensations of God which are a great deep, and are not clearly discerned and known by the best of men; but either his own judgments, which are inflicted upon wicked men as punishments for sin, which yet are not taken notice of, and duly attended to, as they should be; or rather the law of God, and his revealed word, which is the rule of judgment and justice, and a declaration of righteousness, showing what is just and good, and ought to be done, which they were willingly ignorant of; or else the final and future judgment of God after death, to which all men must come, and into which every thought, word, and work, will be brought, and which day wicked men put far from them; see Isa 1:3. (d) Nat. Hist. l. 10. c. 23. (e) De Animal. l. 3. c. 23. (f) Ep. l. 1. Ep. 7. (g) De Ritu Gent. Septent. l. 19. c. 11.”
“The instinct of the migratory birds leads them with unfailing regularity to return every spring from their winter abodes in summer climes (Sol 2:12); but God's people will not return to Him even when the winter of His wrath is past, and He invites them back to the spring of His favor. in the heaven--emphatical. The birds whose very element is the air, in which they are never at rest, yet show a steady sagacity, which God's people do not. times--namely, of migrating, and of returning. my people--This honorable title aggravates the unnatural perversity of the Jews towards their God. know not, &c.-- (Jer 5:4-5; Isa 1:3).”
The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.