Swine/self-righteous

Swine/self-righteous

Le 11:7 And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he [is] unclean to you.

The swine is called out for the opposite reason as the animals above: though it has a divided hoof it does not chew the cud. The metaphor is that it does not meditate on the word. In fact, the proverb makes it more clear by associating a pig with a gold jewel in it's snout with a woman without judgement . The pig will eat anything, and the woman will learn anything.

Self-righteousness is an abominable practice because one puts himself in the position of being God, to declare himself righteous. He has no discernment concerning the things he learns. You have met people whose favorite verse of the Bible is "God helps those who help themselves." Of course that verse isn't in the Bible, but they don't know that. They heard it somewhere and think it is a good teaching.

The word 'swine' means to 'perceive a new revelation'. They think their own ideas are true and they become their own standard of truth. Swine is pronounced chaziyr which sounds a lot like Kaiser or Caesar. The dictators epitomize the metaphor of the swine, declaring their own words to be truth.

swine chaziyr חזיר - perceive חז a new י revelation ר. When God said that Adm had become like one of them to know good and evil , the word for 'to know' is yada‘ ידע, which also means 'to declare' . By declaring good and evil for himself; the same as we do when we take decisions without conferring with God, he has usurped God's position as the one who defines good and evil. He has become a swine; hearing his own new revelation.

We should not learn from the self-righteous. Their folly is a contagion. Their claims of truth encourage others to make up their own truth and try to outdo one another. A famous American religious leader was once asked if he could heal a man's leg which was amputated. He said that he could, but when his other leg was restored in the resurrection, that he would then have three legs for eternity. Others do the same, speculating that the New Jerusalem is a Borg-like cube? Or that we can buy hankies sneezed on by a preacher and be healed of almost any ailment? These are not in scripture, but are 'new revelation' to the proponent.

As long as I am stepping on toes, lets offend everyone. Who is the standard of truth when we choose this church or that church? Is it not ourselves who define the truth we choose to believe? What is the measure of truth? We all say it is the word of God, but we are the arbiter of it. We hear different teaching and we choose what to believe. We all have a bit of swine in us. We should not be learning from each other's swine, but from the clean animal when we can find it.