The boar out of the wood does waste it, and the wild beast of the field does devour it.
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
8. "There hath laid her waste the boar from the wood" (ver. 13). In the boar from the wood what do we understand? To the Jews a swine is an abomination, and in a swine they imagine as it were the uncleanness of the Gentiles. But by the Gentiles was overthrown the nation of the Jews: but that king who overthrew, was not only an unclean swine, but was also a boar. For what is a boar but a savage swine, a furious swine? "A boar from the wood hath laid her waste." "From the wood," from the Gentiles. For she was a vineyard, but the Gentiles were woods. But when the Gentiles believed, there was said what? "Then there shall exult all the trees of the woods." "The boar from the wood hath laid her waste; and a singular wild beast hath devoured her." "A singular wild beast" is what? The very boar that laid her waste is the singular wild beast. Singular, because proud. For thus saith every proud one, It is I, it is I, and no other.
Singular. The wild boar, which does not go with other beasts. Nabuchodonosor is here designated, (Calmet) or Salmanasar, and all persecutors, (Berthier) particularly the devil, who goes about like a roaring lion, and stirs up his agents to disturb the world. Hence the enemy becomes more cruel than any wild beast. (Worthington)
