Boar. — This is the sole mention of the wild boar in Scripture. But it must not therefore be inferred that it was rare in Palestine. (See Tristram’s Nat. Hist. Bib., p. 54.) The writer gives a sad picture of the ravage a herd of them will make in a single night. Comp. —
“In vengeance of neglected sacrifice,
On Oencus’ fields she sent a monstrous boar,
That levell’d harvests and whole forests tore.”
HOMER: Iliad (Pope’s Trans.).
Wild beast. — It seems natural, at first, to take this beast as the emblem of some particular power or oppressor, as the crocodile is of Egypt, the lion of Assyria, &c. But the general term — literally, that moving in the field (see Ps. 1:11) — makes against such an identification.