Yesterday, with the encouragement of my wife, I got rid of some THORNY WEEDS growing like trees in the back garden. The thorns were now like razor sharp nails and so it was difficult to get to the roots without punctures, scratches and a bad attitude. I knew that if I didn't get to the roots, they would just grow again so I used the MATTOCK. A mattock is a hand tool similar to a pickaxe, particularly suited for digging. Unfortunately, I am not! It took forever to dig around the roots and pull out the bulbous, deformed hand of the root system with it's disfigured fingers reaching out insidiously in all directions.
Hebrews 12:15 (NLT) warns us "...Watch out that no POISONOUS ROOT OF BITTERNESS grows up to trouble you, corrupting many." There were some poisonous thorny people Jesus had to deal with that day in Matthew 12:9. RAZOR SHARP in their responses to Jesus and just as destructive. The CLAWED FINGERS of their law system were DISTORTED AND MALFORMED and particularly difficult to uproot. It is not at all surprising that Jesus uses a man with a DEFORMED HAND to illustrate what needed to be done if ever they were to be healed of their DEFORMED HEART.