You have come to know who it was amongst you that transgressed the Sabbath, We said to them, "Be despicable apes!"
Translation endnotes
[2:65] Turning to monkeys and swine is most likely a metaphor indicating their spiritual and intellectual regression since verse 5:60 adds another phrase, “Servants of the aggressor”, which does not depict a physiological transformation. Also see 7:166. Jesus likens his own people figuratively to swine and dogs (Matthew 7:6; 2 Peter 2:22). Swine was regarded as the most filthy and the most abhorred of all animals (Leviticus 11:7; Isaiah 65:4; 66:3, 17; Luke 15:15-16). See 5:60; 7:166).