Albert Barnes Commentary Matthew 7:6

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before the swine, lest haply they trample them under their feet, and turn and rend you." — Matthew 7:6 (ASV)

Give not that which is holy, etc. By some, the word holy has been supposed to mean flesh offered in sacrifice, made holy, or separated to a sacred use. But it probably means here anything connected with religion—admonition, precept, or doctrine. Pearls are precious stones found in shellfish, chiefly in India, in the waters that surround Ceylon. They are used to denote anything peculiarly precious (Revelation 17:4; Revelation 18:12–16; Matthew 13:46).

In this place, "pearls" are used to denote the doctrines of the gospel. Dogs signify men who spurn, oppose, and abuse that doctrine; men of particular sourness and malignant temper, who meet it like growling and quarrelsome curs (2 Peter 2:22; Revelation 22:15).

Swine denote those who would trample the precepts under their feet; men of impurity of life—corrupt, polluted, profane, obscene, and sensual—who would not recognize the value of the gospel and would tread it down as swine would pearls (2 Peter 2:22; Proverbs 11:22).

The meaning of this proverb, then, is: do not offer your doctrine to those violent and abusive men who would growl and curse you, nor to those especially debased and profligate individuals who would not perceive its value, would trample it down, and abuse you. This verse provides a beautiful example of introverted parallelism.

The usual mode of poetry among the Hebrews, and a common mode of expression in proverbs and aphorisms, was parallelism, where one member of a sentence corresponded to another or expressed substantially the same meaning with some addition or modification. (See my Introduction to Isaiah.)

Sometimes this parallelism was alternate, and sometimes it was introverted, where the first and fourth lines would correspond, and the second and third. This is the case here: the dogs would rend, and not the swine; the swine would trample the pearls under their feet, and not the dogs. It may be expressed thus:

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs,
Neither cast you your pearls before swine,
Lest they trample them under their feet,
And turn again [that is, the dogs] and rend you.

Neither cast you your (Proverbs 9:7–8; Proverbs 23:9).