What Does Leviticus 11:7 Mean?

(7) **And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted.**—Better, *And the swine, though he is clovenfooted, and entirely separateth the hoofs. *(See Leviticus 11:3.) Having given these illustrations of animals which comply with the first condition only—*i.e., *which are ruminant but not bisulcous—and hence must not be eaten, the lawgiver now concludes the list of prohibited quadrupeds with an illustration of a contrary nature—viz., the swine, which comply with the second condition only, but not with the first. Here, too, the description is according to appearance. The feet of the pig tribe generally have four toes enclosed in separate hoofs. The two middle hoofs, however, are much larger, and are divided by a deep cleft, and hence to all appearances the swine is bisulcous. Though the law before us simply describes the swine as wanting in one of the two criteria, like the camel, the coney, and the hare, yet the abhorrence which the Jews, as a nation, have always had of this animal, and the impurity which they have ascribed to it infinitely surpass their repulsion of any other unclean beast. For this reason it became the symbol of defilement and the badge of insult (Psalm 65:4; Psalm 66:3; Psalm 66:17; Proverbs 11:22). The eating of pork was regarded as renouncing the Law, and as a sign of apostasy. Hence Antiochus Epiphanes adopted it as a test that those Jews who ate it had forsaken their religion and submitted to his rule. Hence we read that when swine’s flesh was forced into the mouth of Eleazar, the aged scribe, he “spit it forth, choosing rather to die gloriously than to live stained with such an abomination*” *(2 Maccabees 6:18-19). During the time of the commonwealth there were no swine in Judea. Hence it was in a “far country” that the prodigal son was sent into the field to feed the swine (Luke 15:13-15). The swine in Galilee in our Lord’s time (Matthew 8:30) were undoubtedly kept by Gentiles for the Roman legion. The very name of swine (*chazir*) was discarded, and the animal was designated by the euphemistic expression, “the other thing.” This “brutish of all animals” was, moreover, regarded as propagating cutaneous and many other disorders. The Talmud declares that “ten measures of pestilential diseases were spread over the earth, and nine of them fell to the share of pigs.” On the other hand, many of the Pagan nations regarded the swine as an emblem of the productive power of nature. Hence they sacrificed them to those deities to whom they ascribed the fertility of the soil, and the fruitfulness of cattle. Thus, the Egyptians offered them in honour of Isis and Osiris once a year at the festival of the full moon. The Athenians, too, offered the swine in their mysteries; so did the Boetians and the early Romans.