It Is Hard to Kick Agains the Pricks

Question

Granddaddy,

Where did it originate and what does the noun "pricks" refer to? Is information technology a biblical phrase or is information technology a 19th century term?

Volition

Answer

Dear Volition,

In Noah Webster'southward 1828 Dictionary of the English, the substantive prick is defined equally "a slender pointed instrument or substance, which is difficult enough to pierce the skin, such equally a goad or a spur." You may be acquainted with a prickly pear, which is a cactus with very abrupt spines, or pricks. In New Attestation times goads, which were thin metal rods with pointed ends were used to goad or prick the animals that were beingness driven or herded, to help them go on up the pace. The cowboy's spurs are used for the same purpose.

The noun prick is used one fourth dimension in the Onetime Testament—

Merely if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the state from before you; and then information technology shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwelt.(Num 33:55).

Here, the noun pricks is used as a synonym to the word thorns. The word pricks is translated from the Hebrew, sek, meaning thorn. The word. thorn, in the same passage, is translated from the Hebrew, gots, also meaning thorn, or thornbush.

In the New Attestation the term is used only twice. In both cases, Paul is quoting the Savior, whom he saw in a vision while on the road to Damascus intent on persecuting the saints—

And he said, Who fine art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thousand persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick confronting the pricks (Acts 9:5).

And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a vocalism speaking unto me, and proverb in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick confronting the pricks (Acts 26:fourteen).

President Spencer West. Kimball had this to say:

"I often wondered simply what this meant. I institute one authority who offered this:

' . . Those who kick at the goad, that stifle and smother the convictions of censor, that insubordinate against God'south truths laws, that quarrel with His providences, that persecute and oppose His ministers, because they reprove them . . . and fly in the face up of their reprovers, they boot against the pricks, and will have a great deal to respond for.' (Commentaries past Henry K. Scott.)

"A goad is defined as a spear or a precipitous pointed stick used to sting or prig. The burro who kicks the sharp instrument with which he is being prodded is kicking at the pricks. His retaliation does little impairment to the precipitous stick or to him who wields information technology but brings distress to the foot that kicks it.

"I well call back in my youth a neighbor who moved about some days on crutches. He was evasive when asked the cause of his misfortune, simply an ear witness told me, every bit he chuckled: 'John stubbed his toe on a chair in the nighttime and in his quick, fierce anger, he kicked the chair and broke his toe.' The rocking chair rocked on and on, and perhaps smiled at the stupidity of man." (Conference Report,Apr 1955, p. 94.)

He too said:

"In this figure of spoken language is captured the essence of rebellion confronting God; we can only hurt ourselves. If one is pricked by a goad and angered past the pain, he may heedlessly strike out at the source of irritation, just to suffer even more." (Faith Precedes the Miracle, p. 305.)

As a child, I lived in an expanse where there were many prickly pears, and I have kicked them wearing lawn tennis shoes. Some of the spines penetrated the shoes and stuck in my toes. Those spines are endowed with lilliputian barbs along the shafts that make them almost impossible to pull out, and then they piece of work their way through the flesh, coming out on the other side. I have since retained a graphic paradigm of the Savior's argument, it is difficult for thee to kick against the pricks.

Gramps

bratcheryousbantor.blogspot.com

Source: https://askgramps.org/meant-scriptural-term-kicking-against-the-pricks/

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