SWINE

[Gr., khoiʹros; hys (sow); Heb., chazirʹ (pig; boar)].

The collective designation for the ordinary pig (Sus domestica); a medium-sized, cloven-hoofed, short-legged mammal having a thick-skinned, stocky body usually covered with coarse bristles. The pig’s snout is blunt, and its neck and tail are short. Not being a cud chewer, the pig was ruled unacceptable for food or sacrifice by the terms of the Mosaic Law.​—Le 11:7; De 14:8.

While Jehovah’s ban on eating pork was not necessarily based on health considerations, there were and still are hazards connected with the use of this meat for food. Since pigs are indiscriminate in their feeding habits, even eating carrion and offal, they tend to be infested with various parasitic organisms, including those responsible for diseases such as trichinosis and ascariasis.

The Israelites generally seem to have viewed swine as especially loathsome. Hence the ultimate degree in disgusting worship is conveyed by the words: “The one offering up a gift​—the blood of a pig!” (Isa 66:3) To the Israelites, few things could have been more inappropriate than a pig with a gold nose ring in its snout. And it is to this that Proverbs 11:22 compares an outwardly beautiful woman who is not sensible.

Although apostate Israelites ate pork (Isa 65:4; 66:17), the Apocryphal books of First Maccabees (1:65, Dy) and Second Maccabees (6:18, 19; 7:1, 2, Dy) show that during the foreign domination of Palestine by the Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanes and his vicious campaign to stamp out the worship of Jehovah, there were many Jews who refused to eat the flesh of swine, preferring to die for violating the decree of the king rather than to violate the law of God.

The apostle Peter compared Christians who revert to their former course of life to a sow that returns to its wallow after having been washed. (2Pe 2:22) However, it is evident that, as relates to the pig, this illustration is not intended to apply beyond the surface appearance of things. Actually, the pig, under natural conditions, is no dirtier than other animals, although it indulges in wallowing in the mud from time to time in order to cool off in the heat of the summer and to remove external parasites from its hide.