How is a beautiful woman without discretion like a gold ring in a pig's snout (Proverbs 11:22)?

But how unseemly a sight is a fair woman without that discretion which the weaker vessel needs in the world and the race as they are! Truly a jewel of gold in a swine's snout — a phrase purposely framed to convey incongruity and disgust.

To place a gold ring in a swine's snout would be both amusing and stupid (v. 22), but it is just as obnoxious to observe a lovely looking woman who lacks discretion. Why does she not use the beauty God has given her in the interests of truth and goodness? If she were simply righteous, her desire would be only good (v. 23), and such desires will be fulfilled. But what of the desires of the wicked? They are rather spoken of here as "the expectation of the wicked," If he knows anything of the character of God, he can only expect wrath at the end of his course.

These were rings, ornamented with jewels, and generally passed through the right side of the nostril, hanging down by the mouth. This mode of decoration is referred to in Prov. 11:22: "As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion." In Isa. 3:21 the nose jewels are mentioned among other adornments of women, which should be taken away in God's judgements; and in Ezek. 16:12, among the ornaments spoken of symbolically with which God adorned Jerusalem, is 'a jewel on thy forehead,' which should however read 'a ring upon thy nose.'

The next verses open with a contrast, a gracious rather than graceful woman, and violent men; but in verse 22 it is the very different image of a fair woman without discretion with its painful incongruity.

One of the animals classed among the unclean, and which is supposed to have been held in abhorrence as food by the Jews. The prophet Isaiah, however, charges them with eating swine's flesh; and their apostasy was such that he says when they offered an oblation, it was as if they had offered swine's blood: their heartless profession was abhorrent to God. Isa. 65:4; Isa. 66:3, 17. It is not recorded whether the Gadarenes were Jews or Gentiles, who lost their swine by the demons' possession of them. Matt. 8:32; Mark 5:13. The swine are typical of the most defiled and degraded, to whom apostates are compared, and before whom holy things should not be cast. Matt. 7:6; 2 Peter 2:22. The prodigal had reached the lowest point of degradation when he would fain have satisfied his hunger with the swine's food. Luke 15:16.