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  • Swallow
    Aid to Bible Understanding
    • that such a causeless curse does not come to fulfillment or “alight,” but, rather, is like the restless flight of the swallow as it continues almost tirelessly on the wing in pursuit of its insect prey. In the surrounding verses the writer is discussing the fool and his ways, and thus in the rendering first cited (NW) the sense may be instead that, even as the flying of the birds when fleeing from danger or searching for food has a real cause, so, too, if a fool’s course brings a malediction upon him, it was not without there being real cause; his foolish course was responsible.—Compare verse 3; also Proverbs 1:22-32.

      The swallow, particularly the common or barn swallow, is abundant in Palestine. Some swallows spend the year there, whereas others arrive in March and depart at the approach of winter. Small, with long powerful wings and, usually, a forked tail, the swallow is a bird of unusually graceful and speedy flight, able to cover long distances in migration. The plumage often has a rich iridescent hue; its song is a pleasant combination of soft twittering and warbling.

  • Swan
    Aid to Bible Understanding
    • SWAN

      [Heb., tin·sheʹmeth].

      The swan is a large, graceful water bird with a long, slender curving neck. Some swans may weigh as much as forty pounds (18.1 kilograms) and may have a wingspan of as much as eight feet (2.4 meters).

      The Hebrew name (tin·sheʹmeth), appearing in the list of unclean flying creatures (Lev. 11:13, 18; Deut. 14:12, 16), is thought to mean a “hard breather” or “snorter.” It may describe the swan with its loud hissing sound, made when the bird is excited or angered, and is so rendered in a number of translations (AV, Da, Le, NW, Ro, Yg). This identification dates back at least to the Latin Vulgate, in which Jerome rendered the Hebrew tin·sheʹmeth (at Leviticus 11:18) by the Latin word cygnus (“swan”). The earlier Greek Septuagint here reads “purple-colored bird” (Gr., por·phy·riʹon), evidently the purple gallinule or water hen. However, both of these ancient versions translate tin·sheʹmeth as “ibis” at Deuteronomy 14:16, thus showing their uncertainty.

      The swan, though found in Palestine, is not common there in modern times. Because of this, and also due to the fact that the swan is primarily a vegetarian as to diet, many modern translators prefer to identify the tin·sheʹmeth with the “water hen” (RS, Mo), “eagle-owl” (AT), “ibis” (JB), or with other birds known to be either carnivorous or scavengers. However, the rarity of the appearance of swans in Palestine in modern times is not a certain evidence that they were not more common there in ancient times. Likewise, it must be recognized that the view that the classification of certain birds as unclean depended upon their being either raptorial or scavengers is only a deduction and is not directly stated in the Bible.

      In addition to its usual diet of seeds, roots of water plants, and worms, the swan is known to feed on shellfish.

  • Swarming Thing
    Aid to Bible Understanding
    • SWARMING THING

      [Heb., sheʹrets].

      The root word from which this term is drawn means to “swarm” or “teem.” The noun appears to apply to small creatures to be found in large numbers. (Ex. 8:3; Ps. 105:30; compare Exodus 1:7.) It first occurs at Genesis 1:20 with the initial appearance of living souls on the fifth creative day when the waters began to swarm with living souls. The Flood destroyed earthly ‘swarming things’ outside the ark.—Gen. 7:21.

      The law regarding clean and unclean things shows that the term may apply to aquatic creatures (Lev. 11:10), winged creatures, including bats and insects (Lev. 11:19-23; Deut. 14:19), land creatures, including rodents, lizards, chameleons (Lev. 11:29-31), and creatures traveling on their “belly” and multi-legged creatures (vss. 41-44). Many, but not all, of these were “unclean” as food under that Law.

  • Swearing
    Aid to Bible Understanding
    • SWEARING

      See OATH.

  • Sweat
    Aid to Bible Understanding
    • SWEAT

      Perspiration; bodily moisture or liquid excreted by the sudoriparous (sweat) glands and flowing through pores in the skin. Exertion (as during laborious work), emotion (such as anxiety), heat, and so forth, are generally the causes of sweat.

      After sinning, Adam had to eke out an existence from cursed ground outside the Garden of Eden, doing so through sweat-producing toil amid thorns and thistles. Jehovah told him, in part: “In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken.”—Gen. 3:17-19.

      During Ezekiel’s temple vision, Jehovah stated that the priests ministering there were to wear linen garments and that “no wool should come upon them.” They were not to gird themselves with wool or anything ‘causing sweat.’ Perhaps this was to avoid any uncleanness that sweat would produce, or because perspiration would make their service unpleasant rather than joyful, sweat being suggestive of toil or drudgery, as in Adam’s case.—Ezek. 44:15-18.

      JESUS IN GETHSEMANE

      Concerning Jesus Christ, when in Gethsemane on the final night of his earthly life, Luke 22:44 states: “But getting into an agony he continued praying more earnestly; and his sweat became as drops of blood falling to the ground.” The writer does not say that Jesus’ sweat was actually mingled with his blood. He may only have been drawing a comparison, perhaps indicating that Christ’s perspiration formed like drops of blood or describing how the dripping of Jesus’ sweat resembled a drop-by-drop flowing of blood from a wound. On the other hand, Jesus’ blood may have exuded through his skin, being mixed with his sweat. Bloody sweat has reportedly occurred in certain cases of extreme mental stress. Blood or elements thereof will seep through unruptured walls of blood vessels in a condition called diapedesis, and in hematidrosis there is an excreting of perspiration tinged with blood pigment or blood, or of bodily fluid mingled with blood, thus resulting in the ‘sweating of blood.’ These, of course, are only suggestions as to what possibly took place in Jesus’ case.

      Verses 43 and 44 of Luke chapter 22 are omitted in the Vatican Manuscript No. 1209, the Alexandrine Manuscript, the Syriac Sinaitic codex and in the corrected reading of the Sinaitic Manuscript. However, these verses do appear in the original Sinaitic Manuscript, the Codex Bezae, the Latin Vulgate, the Curetonian Syriac manuscript and the Syriac Peshitta Version.

  • Swift
    Aid to Bible Understanding
    • SWIFT

      [Heb., sis].

      Hezekiah, upon recovering from illness, said in a thoughtful composition that he ‘kept chirping like the swift,’ while the prophet Jeremiah used the migratory swift as an example when rebuking the people of Judah for not discerning the time of God’s judgment.—Isa. 38:14; Jer. 8:7.

      That the Hebrew sis identifies the swift is indicated by the use of the same name in Arabic for that bird. The name is suggested by some authorities to indicate a rushing sound; but most consider the name to represent the shrill si-si-si cry of the swift. The swift’s cry has a somewhat wailing, melancholy note that makes Hezekiah’s reference to it a very apt one.

      Though comparatively small, the swift is ranked as the fastest of all flying birds, capable of bursts of speed up to 170 miles (273.5 kilometers) per hour or more. It uses its long, thin scythelike wings energetically and with seeming tirelessness as it swoops and darts after insect prey, which it engulfs in its large mouth while on the wing. Of the three varieties of swifts common to Palestine, the Alpine swift is the largest and is distinguished by its white underparts. It is the first of the migrating swifts to appear in Palestine at the approach of spring, followed shortly thereafter by long streams of common swifts. Their nests are built in dark places, often inside hollow trees or on the sides of cliffs, and are formed of straw and feathers cemented together with the sticky saliva that the bird’s glands produce. The swift’s feet are evidently not structurally designed so as to allow for walking or perching, so the bird obtains all its food and nest materials while in flight and even drinks by skimming over the surface of the water; it rests by clinging to vertical surfaces.

  • Swimmer
    Aid to Bible Understanding
    • SWIMMER

      The ability to swim was common among the ancients. (Ezek. 47:5; Acts 27:42, 43) In an early Egyptian text, a father mentions that his children took swimming lessons, and Assyrian reliefs depict warriors as swimming, often with the aid of inflated skins.

      Ability to swim was a must for fishermen. When using a dragnet, they, likely as in more recent times, would occasionally dive into the water and pull a portion of the weighted edge under the rest of the net to form a bottom. Although apparently a good swimmer (John 21:7, 8), the fisherman Peter began to sink and called for Jesus Christ to save him at the time Peter walked on the water. This was likely the result of the unusually rough water, coupled with Peter’s personal fear.—Matt. 14:27-31.

      In a prophecy against Moab, Isaiah alluded to the actions of a swimmer, saying: “The hand of Jehovah will settle down on this mountain, and Moab must be trodden down in its place as when a straw heap is trodden down in a manure place. And he must slap out [literally, stretch(es) out] his hands in the midst of it as when a swimmer slaps them out to swim, and he must abase its haughtiness with the tricky movements of his hands.” (Isa. 25:10, 11) This rendering, as does the Septuagint Version, suggests that Jehovah stretches out his hands against Moab to deliver destructive blows. Another reading, however, makes Moab the one doing the swimming. An American Translation, for example, states: “The hand of the LORD will rest on this mountain, but Moab will be trampled down where he stands, as straw is trampled down in the water of a dung-pit; and though he spread out his hands in the midst of it, as a swimmer spreads out his hands to swim, his pride will be laid low despite all the tricks of his hands.”

  • Swine
    Aid to Bible Understanding
    • SWINE

      The collective designation for the ordinary pig; 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.—Lev. 11:7; Deut. 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 being 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 death for violating the decree of the king rather than to violate the law of God.

      Whereas some other nations did not eat pork, to the Greeks it was a delicacy. Hence, likely as a result of Hellenistic influence, by the time of Jesus Christ’s earthly ministry there were apparently quite a number of pigs in Palestine, particularly in the Decapolis region. In the country of the Gadarenes there was at least one herd of about 2,000 pigs. When Jesus permitted the demons that he had expelled to enter this large herd, every last one of the animals rushed over a precipice and drowned in the sea.—Matt. 8:28-32; Mark 5:11-13.

      THE CAST-OUT DEMONS WHO ENTERED SWINE

      No fault can be found with Jesus for allowing the demons to enter the swine, especially since certain unstated factors may very well have been involved, such as whether the owners of the swine were Jews, thus being guilty of disrespect for the Law. It was, of course, not required that Jesus exercise foreknowledge as to what the demons would do once they entered the unclean animals. And the demons may have wanted to take possession of the swine in order to derive therefrom some unnatural sadistic pleasure. Also, it might be reasonably argued that a man is worth more than a herd of swine. (Matt. 12:12) Furthermore, all animals actually belong to Jehovah by reason of his Creatorship, and thus Jesus as God’s representative had every right to permit the demons to take possession of the herd of swine. (Ps. 50:10; John 7:29) The demons’ entering the swine manifested their ouster from the men in a very forceful way, thus also making very apparent to observers the harm that came to creatures of flesh that became demon-possessed. It demonstrated for such human observers both Jesus’ power over the demons and demonic power over fleshly creatures. All this may have suited Jesus’ purpose and may explain why he allowed the unclean spirits to enter the swine.

      ILLUSTRATIVE USE

      The inability of swine to recognize the value of pearls was employed by Jesus in illustrating the unwisdom of sharing spiritual things with those having no appreciation whatever of spiritual thoughts and teachings. (Matt. 7:6) And in Jesus’ illustration of the prodigal son, the degradation to which a young man had sunk was accentuated by his having to hire himself out as a swineherd, a most despicable occupation for a Jew, and by his even desiring to share the miserable diet of these animals.—Luke 15:15, 16.

      The apostle Peter compared Christians who revert to their former course of life to a sow that returns to its mud wallow after having been washed. (2 Pet. 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 indulging in mud wallows from time to time in order to cool off in the heat of the summer and to remove external parasites from its hide.

  • Sword
    Aid to Bible Understanding
    • SWORD

      See ARMS, ARMOR.

  • Sycamore
    Aid to Bible Understanding
    • SYCAMORE

      [Heb., sha·qamʹ or shiq·mahʹ].

      This tree mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures has no relation to the North American sycamore, which is a type of plane tree. It is evidently the same as the “fig-mulberry” tree of Luke 19:4. This tree (Ficus sycomorus) has fruit like that of the common fig but its foliage resembles that of the mulberry. It grows to a height of thirty feet (9.1 meters) or more, is strong, and may live for several hundred years. Unlike the common fig, the sycamore (fig-mulberry) is an ever-green. While its heart-shaped leaves are smaller than

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