See Swine
A pig is an animal that people raise for its meat and fat. While the scientific name "swine" is more accurate for these animals, most people today simply call them pigs. The pigs found in the Middle East came from wild pigs (Sus scrofa).
Pigs are very good at providing food because they produce many offspring and grow quickly. Domestic pigs (those that people raise for food) have a thick layer of fat under their skin. Unlike sheep or cattle, farmers cannot herd pigs from place to place. This means pigs are most useful to farmers who stay in one place. The Hebrew people were travelers (nomads) at first, so they did not keep pigs. However, records show that an Egyptian prince around 1500 BC owned 1,500 pigs.
While pigs may look awkward, they can move quickly and with skill. Their most noticeable feature is their short, movable nose that ends in a flat, round surface where their nostrils are. Most pigs have large tusks (long, pointed teeth) in both their upper and lower jaws. These tusks continue to grow throughout the pig's life. The tusks in their upper jaw are special because they curve upward, while most animals' tusks point downward. Pigs produce waste that has a very strong, unpleasant smell. This smell stays on both the pigs and the people who take care of them, making them easy to notice from far away.
Pigs in the Bible
Jewish people did not raise pigs in the land of Israel and Palestine. In the Bible, there is a story about Jesus sending evil spirits into a large group of pigs (Matthew 8:28–32). This happened in a place called Gadara, which was east of the Jordan River where non-Jewish people lived. These pigs were eating on a high cliff above the Sea of Galilee.
Wild pigs lived in the land of Israel and Palestine as well as many countries today. Psalm 80:13 refers to the destruction of a wild boar (the male, or hog) attacking growing crops. A party of wild boars can destroy an entire vineyard or a field of crops in a single night. They eat, trample, and destroy everything within reach.
Boar hunts were popular in ancient Mesopotamia. Wild boars are usually peaceful but can be dangerous when provoked. They travel in groups of six to 50, mainly active in the evening and early morning. Their bodies are covered with stiff bristles and some finer hair, but often have little hair. Wild boars primarily eat plants, including roots, nuts, grains, and stems. They were especially common in Lebanon's mountainous areas, the Jordan River valley, and wooded regions like Mount Tabor.
Jewish Laws and Attitudes about Pigs
Very religious Jewish people would not even say the word 'pig.' Instead, they called pigs "the abomination."Jewish people believed they became unclean if even a pig's hair touched them. They saw pigs as dirty and ugly animals because pigs eat many unpleasant things like dead animals, rats, and waste (2 Peter 2:22).
The Bible uses pigs in several stories to teach lessons. Proverbs 11:22 talks about how strange it would be to put a gold ring in a pig's nose. Jesus used pigs in a lesson about not giving valuable things to those who do not value them (Matthew 7:6). In another story, Jesus tells about a son who became so poor he had to feed pigs and eat their food (Luke 15:15–16). For Jewish people, having to work with pigs showed how low this son had fallen.
God's law did not allow Jewish people to eat pork (pig meat) (Leviticus 11:7; Deuteronomy 14:8). However, the Canaanites who lived in Israel ate pigs regularly. During the time between the Old and New Testament, a Syrian king named Antiochus IV ruled over Israel. He tried to force Jewish people to follow Greek customs and beliefs. First, he made them eat pork, which Greek people saw as special food (2 Maccabees 6:18). But what really caused the Jewish people to rebel was when he put pig's blood on the temple altar as an offering to a Greek god named Zeus (1 Maccabees 1:47). This was a terrible insult to the Jewish temple and their faith.
People who worshiped other gods often used pigs in their religious ceremonies (Isaiah 65:4; 66:3, 17). This might be one reason why God did not allow Jewish people to eat pork. Archaeological discoveries in Israel show that people sacrificed pigs long before Greek culture arrived in the region. For example, researchers found pig bones in a cave below a place of worship at Gezer. They also found an underground room at Tirzah that contained pots with baby pig bones from around 2000 BC.
Archaeologists have found pieces of a small stone statue showing a pig prepared for sacrifice. In ancient Greece and nearby regions, people sacrificed pigs to their goddess Aphrodite (also called Venus). People also killed pigs when making important promises or agreements. For example, in an ancient Greek story called the Iliad, a leader named Agamemnon sacrificed a male pig to the gods Zeus and Helios. Because pigs were used so often in other religions, Jewish people came to see pigs as symbols of unclean practices and false worship.
There may have been several reasons why God did not allow Jewish people to eat pork. Pigs can carry harmful worms (like trichina) that can make people sick, although some animals that were allowed as food could also carry these worms. Pigs also eat dead animals, which might be another reason. Some people get sick from eating pork in hot weather, which could be another explanation for this rule. Muslims also do not eat pork, and some groups in ancient Egypt would not eat it either.
See also Animals.
Aquifer Open Bible Dictionary © 2026 Mission Mutual, an adaptation of the Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary © 2023 Tyndale House Publishers. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
References:
Discussion:
The word chazir is used for domestic and wild pigs. The domesticated pig was known in Egypt around 2500 B.C. and was probably domesticated in Canaan about that time too. Domestication of wild pigs seems to have coincided everywhere with the development of agriculture. Wild pigs were probably penned in large enclosures and fed scraps, thus keeping them away from planted fields. Later on, when full domestication had taken place, it was more usual for pigs to be herded rather than kept in pens. Pigs eat almost anything and herding did away with the necessity to feed them. It soon was noticed that the rooting activity of the pigs rid areas of tree roots and shrubs and promoted the growth of grass for grazing. So early swineherds herded the pigs into areas where future grazing was wanted, away from planted fields. Jews who kept pigs may not have done so with the idea of eating their meat, which was unclean, but to promote grazing grass and to sell the pigs to neighboring tribes.
Wild pigs, in the form of the European Boar Sus scrofus, were once abundant in Israel, especially in the Jordan Valley. Even now since neither Jews nor Moslems eat the meat of wild pigs, and thus do not hunt them, they can still be found in the Jordan Valley and in many other areas where there is both water and thick undergrowth.
The Greek words choiros and hueios mean “pig” or “pig meat". The word hus means a female pig or sow.
Description:
The domesticated pigs of biblical times looked much more like wild pigs than the modern breeds of pig. They would have been brown or gray in color and fairly hairy. The young pigs probably had horizontal stripes.
Special significance or symbolism:
Of all animals the pig was considered the most unclean.
Translation:
In languages that differentiate between wild and domestic pigs, in PSA 80:13 the word for a wild pig should be used. In 2PE 2:22, although the Greek specifies a female pig, the gender of the pig is not really important in the proverb. Many translations have simply “pig".
The Hebrew expression “wild animals of the reeds” in PSA 68:30 is probably a reference to wild pigs and may be translated “wild pigs in the reeds".
Animals in the Bible © United Bible Societies. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.