Colin Jost may have accidentally manifested the wild moment Pete Hegseth quoted the Bible verse pulp Fiction.
“We were talking in the writers’ room and pitching ideas for one of the cold openings like two months ago,” he said Saturday Night Live star, 43, said during a Thursday, May 14, episode The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “And I thought, ‘Would it be funny if Hegseth just did that Bible verse that’s in Pulp Fiction?'”
Jost, who played the Secretary of War on the variety show all season, shared that he and the writers “talked about” making the fictional scenario part of the opening statement, but thought it was “too ridiculous.”
Little did they know that art would imitate life and Hegseth, 45, would do exactly what Jost supposedly suggested.
“And then he actually did it… about two weeks later!” Jost shared. “And I thought, ‘Well, the good news is, I’m being monitored.’ So that’s a relief.’”
Last month, Hegseth spoke at a Faith in Military event at the Pentagon, reciting Samuel L. Jackson’s speech and a fictional Bible verse from Pulp Fiction.
“They call it CSAR 25:17, which I think is supposed to reflect Ezekiel 25:17,” Hegseth began. “It says – and please pray with me – ‘The path of the downed aviator is marked on all sides by the injustices of egoists and the tyranny of evil people.’
The Secretary of War continued, “Blessed is he who, in the name of companionship and duty, leads 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 upon you with great vengeance and furious wrath those who seek to capture and destroy my brother, and you will know that my call sign is Sandy 1 when I shall exact my vengeance upon you.” Amen.”
Hegseth’s moment went viral after many noticed he was quoting Quentin Tarantinois a fictional version of Ezekiel 25:17. In the film, Jackson’s character Jules recites verses before he and his partner in crime Vincent Vega (John Travolta) execute a shady crook.
“The path of the just man is marked on all sides by the injustices of selfish people and the tyranny of evil men,” Jackson said in the film. “Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and benevolence, leads the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will smite upon you with great vengeance and furious anger those who seek to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know that my name is the Lord when I take my vengeance on you.”
Scarlett Johansson finally got revenge on Michael Che for his crude “Weekend Update” joke-swap punchline in the Season 50 finale of Saturday Night Live. Che and Johansson’s husband Colin Jost marked the end of the season with another round of “joke swapping” on the NBC show on Saturday, May 17. The fan favorite section features Che, (…)
The actual version of Ezekiel 25:17 is a much shorter passage that reads: “And I will take great vengeance upon them with fierce reproofs; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall take my vengeance upon them.”
Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell responded to Hegseth’s speech by claiming it was intentional.
“Secretary Hegseth shared on Wednesday an individual prayer, the so-called CSAR prayer, used by the brave Sandy-1 warfighters who led Dude 44 Alpha’s daylight rescue mission from Iran, and which was apparently inspired by the dialogue in Pulp Fiction,” Parnell wrote of “Anyone who says the Secretary misquoted Ezekiel 25:17 is spreading fake news and ignorant of reality.”
