GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 2:25
Hoist by his Own Petard
In Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet,” Hamlet’s enemies were conspiring against him. Hamlet says, “For ‘tis the sport to have the engineer/Hoist with his own petard.” A rough translation would be that his enemies will be blown up by their own bomb.
St. Mark said that some critical Pharisees, guardians of orthodoxy, saw Jesus’ disciples pluck heads of grain on a Sabbath, an act which was legal. However, the disciples then winnowed the grain in their hands, rubbed the grain to separate the kernels from the chaff, which the Pharisees defined as “work,” an act forbidden on the Sabbath. “And he said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did, when he had need and hungered, he, and those with him?’” (2:25)
The Pharisees likely expected Jesus to stop his disciples on the spot and reprimand them, but, no, he let the Pharisees “hoist by their own petard”—“Have you never read …,” he said. These experts in the Law tripped over their own shoelaces, as one common phrase goes. This carpenter from an insignificant village, this wandering teacher who could not claim academic credentials pointed to a flaw in their reasoning—they failed to read an important story—hoist by their own petard.
“When you point your finger, three point back,” says a familiar phrase. It seems that the Pharisees overlooked an important value: be quick to forgive and love and slow to judge. Avoid being hoist by one’s own petard.
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