Swine

The swine (Hebrew: hazir) was regarded as the most unclean and most abhorred of animals in Israelite religion. The law classified it as unclean because it has a split hoof but does not chew the cud — failing the second criterion of the two-part test for clean animals (Lev. 11:7; Deut. 14:8). Eating its flesh and touching its carcass rendered a person ritually unclean. The prophets use swine as an image of the utmost degradation and covenant unfaithfulness (Isa. 65:4; 66:3, 17).

In the New Testament the parable of the Prodigal Son reaches its nadir when the son finds himself feeding swine — the most humiliating possible employment for a Jewish man, far from home and covenant (Luke 15:15–16). The demoniac episode in the Decapolis involves a herd of two thousand swine (Mark 5:11–13), suggesting a Gentile region. Jesus's warning "do not cast your pearls before swine" (Matt. 7:6) uses the animal's disregard for what is valuable as a figure for those who are incapable of receiving sacred truth.