Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

SWINE

Even though the pig is the best known of the biblically “unclean” animals, it is comparatively uncommon in the Bible (in the NT 8 of the 12 references occur in the Gadarene demoniac story). It is specifically forbidden as food in Lev. 11:7; Deut. 14:8, even though its hoof is cloven. Apparently it was the only cloven-hoofed animal not to ruminate, which was considered abnormal or unclean. Further, its omnivorous nature and scavenging habits certainly would have been considered to be unclean. By the intertestamental period, the pig seems to have become the paradigm example of uncleanness, for Antiochus used it to expose religious Jews (2 Macc. 6:18) and to defile the temple altar (1 Macc. 1:47).

The pig is used in both the OT and NT as a metaphor for incongruity. An indiscreet woman is like a gold ring in a pig’s snout (Prov. 11:22). Jesus commands his disciples not to cast their pearls before swine (Matt. 7:6).

The pig is unclean to Jews and Muslims, although ancient Israel’s neighbors did not share this view. Today the wild boar prospers on either side of the Jordan River’s banks as well as the more remote areas of the Golan and the upper Galilee.

Donald Fowler

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

SWINE

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)