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‘Gall’, or ‘myrrh’?
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Matthew 27:34 X Mark 15:23
In the NKJV, Matthew 27:34a reads like this: “they gave Him sour wine mingled with gall to drink.” And Mark 15:23a reads like this: “Then they gave Him wine mingled with myrrh to drink.” That Mark used a generic term, ‘wine’, for the more precise ‘sour wine’ (or ‘wine vinegar’), need not detain us. But what was the mixture? ‘Gall’ is one thing, an animal substance, and ‘myrrh’ is another, a vegetable substance; it was either one or the other, but which? Was Matthew influenced by Psalm 69:21? “They also gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” (Matthew wrote for a Jewish audience, and seems to have mentioned fulfilled prophecy whenever he could.) More to the point, perhaps, is Acts 8:23, where Peter says to Simon (the ex-sorcerer), “for I see that you are in a gall of bitterness” (so the Greek Text). Evidently ‘gall’ was used as a generic term for any bitter substance. I take it that Matthew, perhaps influenced by Psalm 69:21, used the generic term. I conclude that the precise substance used was myrrh, as Mark indicates.

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© 2016 Wilbur N. Pickering, ThM, PhD