Dear Gramps,
Where did it originate and what does the noun “pricks” refer to? Is it a biblical phrase, or is it a 19th century term?
Will

Dear Will,
In Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary of the English Language, the noun prick is defined as “a slender pointed instrument or substance, which is hard enough to pierce the skin, such as a goad or a spur.” You may be acquainted with a prickly pear, which is a cactus with very sharp spines, or pricks. In New Testament times goads, which were thin metal rods with pointed ends were used to goad or prick the animals that were being driven or herded, to help them keep up the pace. The cowboy’s spurs are used for the same purpose.
The noun prick is used one time in the Old Testament—

But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it 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 dwell (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 Testament 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 art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks (Acts 9:5).

And when we were all fallen to the earth, 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 (Acts 26:14).

As a child, I lived in an area where there were many prickly pears, and I have kicked them wearing tennis shoes. Some of the spines penetrated the shoes and stuck in my toes. Those spines are endowed with little barbs along the shafts that make them almost impossible to pull out, and so they work their way through the flesh, coming out on the other side. I have since retained a graphic image of the Savior’s statement, it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
Gramps