The man who sets a trap for others will get caught in it himself. Roll a boulder down on someone, and it will roll back and crush you. [Proverbs 26:27 (TLB)]
Because the wicked are unfair, their violence boomerangs and destroys them. [Proverbs 21:7 (TLB)]
Even without knowing what a petard is, we probably know that when someone gets “hoisted by his own petard,” he’s been foiled by his own scheme. When Shakespeare’s audience heard this phrase spoken by Hamlet in 1600, they knew a petard was a bomb. In the bard’s day, hoisted had more than one meaning. Along with lifted, it meant removed or taken out. Taken literally, Hamlet’s phrase meant that his enemy would be blown up by his own bomb!
Proverbs has much to say about evil schemes backfiring and, when reading them, I often think of the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote. This hapless canine continually plotted ways to capture the noisy Roadrunner and he probably holds the record for having the most schemes backfire. For example, when he dropped an anvil on the bird from a hot air balloon, the balloon rapidly lost altitude and sunk to the ground just in time for the anvil to land on the coyote’s head. When he tried to capture the bird using a boomerang covered in glue, Coyote ended up stuck to the weapon when it returned to him. He literally was the one hoisted by his own petard when he mistakenly tossed a grenade’s pin at the bird rather than the grenade in his paw. While the bird safely whizzed down the road, the schemer was blown into the air when the grenade exploded.
It’s not just fiction’s villains and Looney Tune characters whose devious plans backfire—we see plenty of petard hoisting in Scripture. When Israel’s King Ahab and Judah’s King Jehoshaphat joined forces against the king of Aram, Ahab tried to defeat the prophecy that he’d die in battle by disguising himself so he wouldn’t be recognized. To ensure his ploy would succeed, he put a bull’s eye on Jehoshaphat by insisting he wear his royal robes. Told only the kill Ahab, Aram’s soldiers mistakenly chased after Jehoshaphat but stopped when they discovered their error. Although Jehoshaphat remained unharmed, Ahab’s ruse backfired when he was fatally wounded by a random arrow.
Jealous of Daniel’s government position, King Darius’ officials plotted to have the pious Jew arrested and put to death for praying to Jehovah. But, after Daniel emerged from the lions’ den unscathed, those schemers (and their families) met their fate in that same lions’ den! When Moab’s King Balak hired Balaam to curse Israel, his evil plan backfired when Israel was blessed and Moab cursed! When Haman’s wickedness was revealed in the book of Esther, the evil man really was hoisted up and impaled on the 75-foot sharpened pole he erected to kill Esther’s cousin Mordecai.
Many years ago, my son and his wife gave us a boomerang. In theory, when thrown correctly, a boomerang flies in a circular path before returning to its starting point, but the only way that boomerang returned was if the dog brought it back to us! Evil plans, harmful schemes, and spiteful behavior, however, have a way of boomeranging and we don’t have to be Wile E. Coyote to have our maliciousness backfire or explode. If we wrong others or scheme against them, gossip, betray friendships, sabotage other people’s plans, or start pointing fingers, our strategies may well return to us. Remember the old phrase, “What goes around, comes around”? While that may not have been true for our boomerang, it appears to be true for malice, animosity, and evil plans.
In a classic Peanuts comic (drawn by Charles Schulz), the meek Linus asked his bossy big sister Lucy, “Why are you always so anxious to criticize me?” She answered, “I just think I have a knack for seeing other peoples’ faults.” When Linus queried, “What about your own faults?” Lucy replied, “I have a knack for overlooking them.” Along with her over-sized ego, Lucy has what psychologists call “fundamental attribution error.”
Since we both attended liturgical churches as girls, my friend and I were trying to recall the terms for the various parts of a traditional church building. We knew the foyer is called the narthex and the congregation sits the church’s nave. We also knew the altar rail usually separated the nave from the chancel in the front. It’s from the chancel that the service is conducted and where the altar, pulpit, and lectern are located. We even recalled that the sacristy was the room holding Communion supplies and linens. Since we were worshipping in a park that morning, my friend asked the location of our sanctuary. In historic usage, sanctuary and chancel were synonymous but, in modern usage, a sanctuary consists of the entire worship space of a church. With no building, we had no narthex, nave, or chancel but we did have a worship space; our sanctuary was a gazebo in a county park.
As we settled into our pews in the sanctuary, people talked loudly, called out to one another, laughed raucously, visited other pews, and checked their phones even after the organist started his beautiful prelude. It wasn’t until the pastor stood at the pulpit and started speaking that they eventually quieted down and put away their phones. As I wondered what became of the awe and reverence that should accompany us into God’s house, I again thought of the time Israel brought the sacred Ark of the Covenant into battle with them. Putting aside their idolatry, consider the lack of respect given to this religious chest designed by God and representing His presence among His people.
During the time of the judges, the Israelites were at war with the Philistines. Following their loss of 4,000 men, they questioned why God had allowed their defeat but never bothered asking Him. Instead, they decided that carrying the Ark of the Covenant into battle would guarantee a future victory. Perhaps they remembered the story of Israel entering the Promised Land—how the Jordan River stopped flowing when the feet of the priests carrying the Ark touched the water and the entire nation crossed the dry riverbed into Canaan. They may have recalled Jericho’s defeat when Israel’s priests carried the Ark around the walled city for seven days and the city’s seemingly invincible walls collapsed. Maybe they thought it was the Arks’ presence that caused those miracles; in any case, they brought the Ark to their camp in Ebenezer.
While baking banana bread, I decided to add in the last of the walnuts I found in the refrigerator. After pouring the dough into the prepared pans, I spotted a few walnut pieces that hadn’t made the mixing bowl and popped them in my mouth. One taste told me they were rancid! Not only are rancid nuts horrid tasting but, if enough are consumed, they can make you sick! Just as there’s no way to get a little bit of yeast out of a lump of dough, there was no way to get every last bit of nut nastiness out of the bread. A mere cup of nuts managed to turn more than eight cups of what should have been sweet and delicious into something bitter and sour. As I emptied the pans into the garbage, I recalled a sermon illustration about a thirteen-year-old girl.
Devotions of the Heart 