Secretary of War Pete Hegseth seemingly confused Samuel L. Jackson’s classic rant from Pulp Fiction with a Bible verse during a Pentagon prayer service.
Hegseth, 45, was speaking at the “Faith in Military” event at the Pentagon on Wednesday, April 16, when the mixup occurred. Hegseth told those in attendance that he would read “a prayer” that was recited by Sandy 1, one of the US Air Force Combat Search and Rescue teams who rescued an airman behind enemy lines in Iran recently.
“They call it CSAR 25:17, which I think is meant to reflect Ezekiel 25:17,” Hegseth began. “It reads — and pray with me please — ‘The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of camaraderie and duty shepherds the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother, and you will know my call sign is Sandy 1 when I lay my vengeance upon thee.’ Amen.”
Observers called out that Hegseth or his staff were apparently unaware that the bulk of the passage he read was director Quentin Tarantino’s fake version of Ezekiel 25:17, which is spoken by Jackson’s hitman character Jules Winnfield in the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction.
Jules recites the fictional scripture before he and his partner-in-crime Vincent Vega (John Travolta) execute shady crook Brett (Frank Whaley) in the thriller.
“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men,” Jules warns in Pulp Fiction. “Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and goodwill, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord, when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”
Tarantino’s version is a riff on the actual Ezekiel 25:17, which is a much shorter biblical passage than the one Hegseth read at the Pentagon.
“And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them,” the scripture reads.
Hegseth seemingly knew that he wasn’t necessarily reading an exact quotation from the Bible since his version included a direct reference to the Sandy 1 search and rescue team.
However, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell responded to the social media chatter by insisting that Hegseth intentionally read a “custom prayer” during the service.
“Secretary Hegseth on Wednesday shared a custom prayer, referenced as the CSAR prayer, used by the brave warfighters of Sandy-1 who led the daylight rescue mission of Dude 44 Alpha out of Iran, which was obviously inspired by dialogue in Pulp Fiction,” Parnell, 44, tweeted on Thursday, April 16. “However, both the CSAR prayer and the dialogue in Pulp Fiction were reflections of the verse Ezekiel 25:17, as Secretary Hegseth clearly said in his remarks at the prayer service. Anyone saying the Secretary misquoted Ezekiel 25:17 is peddling fake news and ignorant of reality.”
Not everyone was convinced by the Pentagon’s explanation, with one X user replying to Parnell, “This is not making it any better.”
“This is funny and weird at the same time. Mixing movie lines with real prayer? Not sure if cool or bad idea,” another person added.
