Swine

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SWINE (chazîr).—Domesticated swine were probably kept in the East in the earliest historic times, when they appear to have been regarded as sacred. In a cave associated with the earliest place of sacrifice at ancient Gezer, in use certainly before b.c. 2000, large quantities of pigs’ bones were found. It was the sacrosanct character of swine that lay at the root of the prohibition in Lev_11:7 and Deu_14:8; and the eating of swine’s flesh and offering of swine’s blood (Isa_65:4; Isa_66:3; Isa_66:17) are clearly regarded as a sign of lapse into paganism. The heathen frequently tried to compel the Jews to eat swine’s flesh (e.g. 2Ma_6:18; 2Ma_7:1) and thus renounce their religion. The contempt felt for swine is shown by the proverbs quoted in Pro_11:22, Mat_7:6, and 2Pe_2:22. In the Talmudic writings the pig appears as the emblem of uncleanness, and those who keep swine are regarded with aversion. The same ideas colour the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luk_15:15), where he is depicted as reaching the lowest depth of infamy in being sent to feed swine, and actually being reduced to covet their food; and also the narrative of the demoniacs, where the Gentile inhabitants of Gerasa lose their great herd of swine (Mat_8:30, Mar_5:13, Luk_8:32).
In modern Palestine very much the same feeling survives. Chanzîr ‘pig’ is a common but very opprobrious appellation. Swine’s flesh is loathed by Jews and Moslems; the latter, who otherwise eat the same food as Christians, are always very suspicious that any unknown food may be contaminated with it. Pigs are not common in Palestine; they are kept by German colonists and in a few places by native Christians. In Rameh in Galilee, for example, considerable herds are kept and pastured in the surrounding fields. Horses, unfamiliar with their smell are much perturbed on approaching the village, and it is said that the cattle will not touch the water of the stream below where the swine are accustomed to resort.
E. W. G. Masterman.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

Swine. (Hebrew, chazir). The flesh of swine was forbidden as food by the Levitical law, Lev_11:7; Deu_14:8, the abhorrence which the Jews, as a nation, had of it may be inferred from Isa_65:4, and 2Ma_6:18-19. No other reason for the command to abstain from swine's flesh is given in the law of Moses, beyond the general one, which forbade any of the mammalia as food, which did not literally fulfill the terms of the definition of a clean animal," namely, that it was to be a cloven-footed ruminant.
It is, however, probable that dietetical considerations may have influenced Moses in his prohibition of swine's flesh: it is generally believed that its use in hot countries is liable to induce cutaneous disorders; hence, in a people liable to leprosy, the necessity for the observance of a strict rule. Although the Jews did not breed swine during the greater period of their existence as a nation, there can be little doubt that the heathen nations of Palestine used the flesh as food.
At the time of our Lord's ministry, it would appear that the Jews occasionally violated the law of Moses with regard to swine's flesh. Whether "the herd of swine" into which the devils were allowed to enter, Mat_8:32; Mar_5:13, were the property of the Jewish, or of the Gentile inhabitants of Gadara, does not appear from the sacred narrative. The wild boar of the wood, Psa_80:13, is the common Sus scrofa, which is frequently met with in the woody parts of Palestine, especially in Mount Tabor.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

חזיכּ , Lev_11:7; Deu_14:8; Psa_80:13; Pro_11:22; Isa_65:4; Isa_66:3; Isa_66:17; χοιρος, Mat_7:6; Mat_8:30; Mar_5:14; Luk_8:33; Luk_15:15; the plural of hog, an animal well known. In impurity and grossness of manners, this creature stands almost unrivalled among the order of quadrupeds; and the meanness of his appearance corresponds to the grossness of his manners. He has a most indiscriminate, voracious, and insatiable appetite. The Prophet Isa_65:4, charges his degenerate people with eating swine's flesh, and having broth of abominable things in their vessels, Isa_66:3. Conduct so contrary to their solemn engagements, so hateful in the sight of the Holy One, though long endured, was not always to pass with impunity. “They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens, behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the Lord,” Isa_66:17. Such a sacrifice was an abomination to the Lord, because the eating of the blood was prohibited, and because the sacrifice consisted of swine's flesh. To these precepts and threatenings, which were often enforced by severe judgments, may be traced the habitual and unconquerable aversion of the latter Jews to the use of swine's flesh; an aversion which the most alluring promises and the most cruel sufferings have been found alike insufficient to subdue.
In such detestation was the hog held by the Jews, that they would not so much as pronounce its name, but called it “the strange thing;” and we read in the history of the Maccabees, that Eleazer, a principal scribe, being compelled by Antiochus Epiphanes to open his mouth and receive swine's flesh, spit it forth, and went of his own accord to the torment, choosing rather to suffer death than to break the law of God, and give offence to his nation, 2Ma_6:18; 2Ma_7:1. It is observed that when Adrian rebuilt Jerusalem, he set up the image of a hog, in bas-relief, upon the gates of the city, to drive the Jews away from it, and to express the greater contempt for that miserable people. It was avarice, a contempt of the law of Moses, and a design to supply the neighbouring idolaters with victims, that caused whole herds of swine to be fed on the borders of Galilee. Whence the reason is plain of Christ's permitting the devils to throw the swine headlong into the lake of Genesareth, Mat_8:32. We read, in Mat_7:6, “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.” There is a similar maxim in the Talmudical writings: “Do not cast pearls before swine;” to which is added, by way of explanation, “Do not offer wisdom to one who knows not the value of it, but profanes its glory.”
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.

swı̄n (חזיר, ḥăzı̄r; compare Arabic khinzir; ὗς, hús, Septuagint and New Testament; compare Greek σῦς, sús, and Latin sus; adjective ὕειος, húeios, as a substantive, the Septuagint; χοῖρος, choı́ros, Septuagint and New Testament): In both ancient and modern times domestic swine have been little kept in Palestine, but wild swine are well known as inhabitants of the thickets of the Ḥûleh, the Jordan valley, the Dead Sea, and some of the mountains. The species is Sus scrofa, the wild pig of Europe, North Africa and Western Asia.
In the Old Testament the swine is mentioned in Lev_11:7 and Deu_14:8 as an unclean animal: ?And the swine, because he parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, but cheweth not the cud, he is unclean unto you.? In Isa_65:4 and Isa_66:3, Isa_66:17 the eating of swine's flesh and the offering of oblations of swine's blood are referred to as abominations. Septuagint also refers to swine in three passages where these animals are not mentioned in the Hebrew and EV. In 2Sa_17:8 where English Versions of the Bible has ?as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field,? Septuagint adds (translation) ?and as a savage boar in the plain.? In 1Ki_21:19 Septuagint 1Ki_20:19), where English Versions of the Bible has ?in the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth,? Septuagint has ?where the swine and the dogs licked?; similarly in 1Ki_22:38. In 1 Macc 1:47 there is reference to a decree of Antiochus ordering the sacrifice of swine. In 2 Macc 6 and 7 there are accounts of the torture and death of Eleazar, an aged scribe, and of a mother and her seven sons for refusing to taste swine's flesh. Swine, the property of Gentiles, are mentioned in the account of the Gadarene demoniac (Mat_8:30, Mat_8:31, Mat_8:32; Mar_5:11, Mar_5:12, Mar_5:13, Mar_5:14, Mar_5:16; Luk_8:32, Luk_8:33), and in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luk_15:15, Luk_15:16).
Figurative: We find the following figurative references to swine:
?The boar out of the wood doth ravage it,
And the wild beasts of the field feed on it? (i.e. on the ?vine out of Egypt?) (Psa_80:13);
?As a ring of gold in a swine's snout,
So is a fair woman that is without discretion? (Pro_11:22);
?The Carmonians (the King James Version Carmanians, perhaps of Kirman or Carmania, in Southwestern Persia) raging in wrath shall go forth as the wild boars of the wood? (2 Esdras 15:30);
?The dog turning to his own vomit again, and the sow that had washed to wallowing in the mire? (2Pe_2:22; compare Pro_26:11).

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.

Egyptian pictures, the parable of the Prodigal Son, and Christ's miraculous cure of the demoniac, when He permitted swine to be possessed and destroyed by rushing over a precipice into the Sea of Galilee, furnish ample proofs that during the dominion of the Romans the domesticated breeds of these animals were reared in great numbers among the Jews, notwithstanding the strong prohibition in the law of Moses. Commentators ascribe this abundance of swine to the numerous Pagan sacrifices of these animals in the temples: but we do not deem this to be a sufficiently correct view of the case, since hogs of every denomination were less used for that purpose than oxen, goats, and sheep. May it not be conjectured that in those days of a greatly condensed population the poor found in swine's flesh, and still more in the fat and lard, melted for culinary purposes, as it still is in every part of Pagan Africa, a most desirable aliment, still more acceptable than the salt fish imported from Sidon, to season their usual vegetable diet?




The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.

Isa_66:3 (b) This type describes the terrible depravity of a man wherein he lives in his filthy sins, and yet offers a sacrifice to GOD as though he were a godly man.

Mat_7:6 (b) The ungodly person who wallows in his wickedness is described by this filthy animal. We are not to present the precious truths of GOD, and His sweet promises to such a vile person. He would not understand, nor appreciate, those messages in which the Christians delight.

Luk_15:15 (b) This wandering boy was mingling with the people of the world who lived in sin, lust and rebellion. Unsaved people are looked upon by GOD as being in their sins, unrighteous, unholy and stained with evil and wickedness. The Christian has no business seeking to find his satisfaction among them.
Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types
press 1957.


(חֲזַיר, chazir; Sept. υς, ὕειος, σῦς; New Test. χοῖρος). Allusion will be found in the Bible to these animals, both in their domestic and in their wild state. See Tristram, Nat. Hist. of the Bible, p. 145; Wood, Bible Animals, p. 292.
1. The flesh of swine was forbidden as food by the Levitical law (Lev_11:7; Deu_14:8). The abhorrence which the Jews as a nation had of it may be inferred from Isa_65:4, where some of the idolatrous people are represented as “eating swine's flesh,” and as having the “broth of abominable things in their vessels;” see also 66:3, 17, and 2Ma_6:18-19, in which passage we read that Eleazar, an aged scribe, when compelled by Antiochus to receive in his mouth swine's flesh, “spit it forth, choosing rather to die gloriously than to live stained with such an abomination.” The use of swine's flesh was forbidden to the Egyptian priests, to whom, says Sir G. Wilkinson (Anc. Egypt. 1, 322), “above all meats it was particularly obnoxious” (see Herodotus, 2, 47; Elian, De Nat. Anim. 10:16; Josephus, Apion, 2, 14), though it was occasionally eaten by the people. The Arabians also were disallowed the use of swine's flesh (see Pliny, H. N. 8:52; Koran, 2, 175), as were also the Phoenicians, Ethiopians, and other nations of the East.
No other reason for the command to abstain from swine's flesh is given in the law of Moses beyond the general one which forbade any of the mammalians food which did not literally fulfill the terms of the definition of a “clean animal,” viz. that it was to be a cloven-footed ruminant. The pig, therefore, though it divides the hoof, but does not chew the cud, was to be considered unclean; and consequently, inasmuch as, unlike the ass and the horse in the time of the Kings, no use could be made of the animal when alive, the Jews did not breed swine (Lactant. Instit. 4:17). It is, however, probable that dietetical considerations may have influenced Moses in his prohibition of swine's flesh. It is generally believed that its use in hot countries is liable to induce cutaneous disorders; hence in a people liable to leprosy the necessity for the observance of a strict rule. “The reason of the meat not being eaten was its unwholesomeness, on which account it was forbidden to the Jews and Moslems” (Sir G. Wilkinson's note in Rawlinson's Herodotus, 2, 47). Ham. Smith, however (Kitto, Cyclop. s.v.), maintains that this reputed unwholesomeness of swine's flesh has been much exaggerated; and recently a writer in Colburn's News Monthly Magazine (July 1, 1862, p. 266) has endorsed this opinion. Other conjectures for the reason of the prohibition, which are more curious than valuable, may be seen in Bochart (Hieroz. 1, 806 sq.). Calüstratus (apud Plutarch. Sympos. 4:5) suspected that the Jews did not use swine's flesh for the same reason which, he says, influenced the Egyptians, viz. that this animal was sacred, inasmuch as by turning up the earth with its snout it first taught men the art of ploughing (see Bochart, Fieroz. 1, 806, and a dissertation by Cassel, entitled De Judcebrum Odio et Abstinentia a Porcina ejusque Causis [Magdeb.]; also Michaelis, Comment. on the Laws of Moses, art. 203, 3, 230, Smith's transl.). Although the Jews did not breed swine during the greater period of their existence as a nation, there can be little doubt that the heathen nations of Palestine used the flesh as food. See Plumptre, Bible Educator, 1, 280 sq.
At the time of our Lord's ministry it would appear that the Jews occasionally violated the law of Moses with respect to swine's flesh. Whether “the herd of swine” into which the devils were allowed to enter (Mat_8:32; Mark 5, 13) were the property of the Jewish or Gentile inhabitants of Gadara does not appear from the sacred narrative; but that the practice of keeping swine did exist among some of the Jews seems clear from the enactment of the law of Hyrcanus, ne cui porcum alere liceret” (Grotius, Ann. of. ad Matthew loc. cit). Allusion is made it 2Pe_2:22, to the fondness which swine have for “wallowing in the mire;” this, it appears, was a proverbial expression, with which may be compared the amica luto sus” of Horace (Ep. 1, 2,26). Solomon's comparison of a “jewel of gold in a swine's snout” to a “fair woman without discretion” (Pro_11:22), and the expression of our Lord, “neither cast ye your pearls before swine,” are so obviously intelligible as to render any remarks unnecessary. The transaction of the destruction of the herd of swine already alluded to, like the cursing of the barren fig-tree, has been the subject of most unfair cavil: it is well answered by Trench (Miracles, p. 173), who observes that “a man is of more value than many swine;” besides which it must be remembered that it is not necessary to suppose that our Lord sent the devils into the swine. He merely permitted them to go, as Aquinas says, “quod autem porci in mare prsecipitati sunt non fuit operatio divini miraculi, sed operatio demoanum e permissibne divina;” and if these Gadarene villagers were Jews and owned the swine, they were rightly punished by the loss of that which they ought not to have had at all. See Tacit. Hist. 5, 4; Juven. Sat. 14:98; Macrob. Sat. 2, 4; Josephus, Ant. 13:8, 2; Philo, Opp. 2, 531; Mishna, Baba Kama, 7:7; Talm. Hieros. Shekal. fol. 47, 3; Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. p. 315 sq.; Otho, Lex. Rab. p. 530 sq.
2. The wild boar of the wood (Psa_80:13) is the common Sus scrofa which is frequently met with in the woody parts of Palestine, especially in Mount Tabor. The allusion in the psalm to the injury the wild boar does to the vineyards is well borne out by fact. “It is astonishing what havoc a wild boar is capable of effecting during a single night; what with eating and trampling underfoot, he will destroy a vast quantity of grapes” (Hartley, Researches in Greece, p. 234). SEE BOAR.



CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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