Boar

The boar (wild pig) appears in Scripture only in Psalm 80:13, where the afflicted nation is compared to a vineyard ravaged: “The boar from the forest ravages it, and all that move in the field feed on it.” The Hebrew chazir is elsewhere translated “swine,” referring to the domestic and wild pig alike. Wild boars were common in the forests and marshes of ancient Palestine, and their destructive rooting in cultivated fields made them a fitting image for the thorough devastation of an enemy invasion.

Swine were classified as unclean under the Levitical dietary law (Lev. 11:7; Deut. 14:8), making the boar doubly threatening in the psalm's imagery—an unclean beast desecrating what was meant to be holy and fruitful. Proverbs 11:22 uses a gold ring in a swine's snout as an image of misplaced beauty, and Isaiah 65:4 lists eating swine's flesh among the abominations of the apostate. The wild boar of Psalm 80 has been interpreted historically as a symbol of specific foreign aggressors, though the metaphorical force is independent of any single historical referent.