Swine Time

There’s nothing like the pig pen at the county fair to slap a smile on your face. Though not super-models, but you can be sure they’ve been washed, shaved and otherwise beautified for their “showing” and hopefully a ribbon. But nothing—not even the caricature of “beautiful” that Muppet “Miss Piggy” brought to pig-dom—can eradicate the basic “pig”-ness of pigs. Turn ‘em back to the pen at home and they’ll roll in the first available mud to cool off. And snort. Their vocals aren’t exactly on par with meadowlarks.

I’m not a farm girl, but I’ve heard some make great pets. But they’re still pigs (or “swine”), and a breath away from a grocery ad illustration.

In the Bible, swine had a much more unsavory reputation. Declared “unclean” and unfit to eat, only non-Jews (or bad Jews) raised them. The “unclean” ruling was God’s way of keeping the Jews healthy in those days of primitive medicine. Pigs often carried trichina worms which passed on to humans in undercooked meat. The larvae infected major organs and muscles, making people very sick.

To keep things simple, God told the people to just leave ham (and other disease-bearing living things) out of their diets. Thus they acquired the reputation as loathsome creatures. That provides the background for a little proverb tucked into Proverbs 11 between two verses about the righteous and the wicked:

Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion (Proverbs 11:22).

In those days, the women often wore gold nose rings along with other jewelry as their “on-board” savings account. If a woman was widowed or abandoned, she at least had the jewelry attached to her body as an insurance policy. I’m not sure I’d want a nose ring, but in those days it was part of the beauty code. Except, you didn’t honor a pig with a nose ring. Slop and mud would soon coat it.

The contrast is the message. A woman may know how to dress, apply makeup, and do her hair in the latest style. But if her attitude stinks, that won’t make up for the best perfume. If what comes out of her mouth is negatives or profanity, that will cancel any other words. Externals don’t cover for the internals of godly character. Or, as the writer put it a few verses earlier, “A kind-hearted woman gains respect” (v. 16).

Turning over a few pages to Psalm 31, we’re given a get the bigger picture of what makes a godly woman tick. I’ve read it over and over, and I can’t see anything that puts “looks” first. In fact, after praising her industriousness and compassion, it ends up, “charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised” (v. 20).

That encourages aging women like me whose faces now nurture wrinkles and whiskers. At least some of those wrinkles are smile marks from checking out the pig pen at the fair. I know I could have even more laugh lines as I learn how, like Mrs. Perfect in Proverbs 31, to “laugh at the days to come” (v. 25).

Besides, with all my allergies, a nose ring would be a nuisance.