Boar

Occurs only in Ps. 80:13. The same Hebrew word is elsewhere rendered "swine" (Lev. 11:7; Deut. 14:8; Prov. 11:22; Isa. 65:4; 66:3, 17). The Hebrews abhorred swine's flesh, and accordingly none of these animals were reared, except in the district beyond the Sea of Galilee. In the psalm quoted above the powers that destroyed the Jewish nation are compared to wild boars and wild beasts of the field.

חזיר. The wild boar is considered as the parent stock of our domestic hog. He is smaller, but at the same time stronger and more undaunted, than the hog. In his own defence, he will turn on men or dogs; and scarcely shuns any denizen of the forests, in the haunts where he ranges. His colour is always an iron grey, inclining to black. His snout is longer than that of the common breed, and his ears are comparatively short. His tusks are very formidable, and all his habits are fierce and savage. It should seem, from the accounts of ancient authors, that the ravages of the wild boar were considered as more formidable than those of other savage animals. The conquest of the Erymanthian boar was one of the fated labours of Hercules; and the story of the Calydonian boar is one of the most beautiful in Ovid. The destructive ravages of these animals are mentioned in Psalm lxxx, 14. Dr. Pococke observed very large herds of wild boars on the side of Jordan, where it flows out of the sea of Tiberias; and saw several of them on the other side lying among the reeds by the sea. The wild boars of other countries delight in the like moist retreats. These shady marshes then, it should seem, are called in the Scripture, “woods;” for it calls these animals, “the wild boars of the woods.”