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.

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.

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.