📖 Biblical Definition
"To kick against the pricks" — or, more clearly, against the goad — is Christ’s arresting word to Saul on the Damascus road: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks" (Acts 9:5; 26:14). The image is taken from farming: an ox driven by a pointed goad only injures itself by kicking back. Christ uses the proverb diagnostically — Saul’s persecution of the church is not striking the church; it is striking himself, futilely, against the directing goad of God. The application is universal. Every man who fights the LORD’s providence — His commands, His discipline, His Spirit’s conviction — is kicking against the pricks, doing himself harm. Submit, and be healed.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
Futile resistance to God's pursuing call.
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A Greek agricultural proverb: an ox kicking back against the goad only injures itself. Christ uses it on the Damascus road to describe Saul's persecution of the church — futile, painful resistance to the Lord's call already pursuing him.
📖 Key Scripture
Acts 9:5 — "And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks."
Acts 26:14 — "I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks."
Jonah 1:3 — "But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Forgotten as obscure idiom, missing how vividly it pictures the futility of fighting God's call.
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Christ's words to Saul are pastoral as well as confrontational. The Lord had been pursuing Saul long before Damascus. The persecutor was the goaded ox kicking back. Many a long-resistant conversion has the same dynamic: the call has been there longer than we knew.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Greek kentra — goads.
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['Greek', 'G2759', 'kentron', 'goad, sting']
['Greek', 'G2979', 'laktizō', 'to kick']
Usage
"Stop kicking against the goads."
"The call has been there longer than you knew."