Goad
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(Acts 26:14)—a long staff, commonly fitted with a point, used to direct oxen. The proverb “It hurts you to kick against the goads” depicts an animal injuring itself by resisting the instrument that guides it. The risen Christ applies the saying to Saul: resistance to the divine call harms the resister but cannot defeat God’s purpose. The sentence appears in Acts 26:14; its presence in Acts 9:5 in the King James tradition comes from later Greek manuscripts and should not be treated as the earliest form of that verse.