Instead of oxov, vinegar, several excellent MSS. and versions have oinon, wine; but as sour wine is said to have been a general drink of the common people and Roman soldiers, it being the same as vinegar, it is of little consequence which reading is here adopted. This custom of giving stupefying potions to condemned malefactors is alluded to in Prov. xxxi. 6: Give strong drink, rq� shekar, inebriating drink, to him who is ready to PERISH, and wine to him who is BITTER of soul-because he is just going to suffer the punishment of death. And thus the rabbins, as we have seen above, understand it. See Lightfoot and Schoettgen.

Michaelis offers an ingenious exposition of this place: "Immediately after Christ was fastened to the cross, they gave him, according to ver. 34, vinegar mingled with gall; but, according to Mark, they offered him wine mingled with myrrh. That St. Mark's account is the right one is probable from this circumstance, that Christ refused to drink what was offered him, as appears from both evangelists. Wine mixed with myrrh was given to malefactors at the place of execution, to intoxicate them, and make them less sensible to pain. Christ, therefore, with great propriety, refused the aid of such remedies. But if vinegar was offered him, which was taken merely to assuage thirst, there could be no reason for his rejecting it.

Besides, he tasted it before he rejected it; and therefore he must have found it different from that which, if offered to him, he was ready to receive. To solve this difficulty, we must suppose that the words used in the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew were such as agreed with the account given by St. Mark, and at the same time were capable of the construction which was put on them by St. Matthew's Greek translator. Suppose St. Matthew wrote aryrmb aylj (chaleea bemireera) which signifies, sweet wine with bitters, or sweet wine and myrrh, as we find it in Mark; and Matthew's translator overlooked the yod y in aylj (chaleea) he took it for alj (chala) which signifies vinegar; and bitter, he translated by colh, as it is often used in the Septuagint. Nay, St. Matthew may have written alj , and have still meant to express sweet wine; if so, the difference only consisted in the points; for the same word which, when pronounced chale, signifies sweet, denotes vinegar, as soon as it is pronounced chala." With this conjecture Dr. Marsh (Michaelis's translator) is not satisfied; and therefore finds a Chaldee word for oinov wine, which may easily be mistaken for one that denotes oxov vinegar; and likewise a Chaldee word, which signifies smurna, (myrrh,) which may be easily mistaken for one that denotes colh, (gall.) "Now," says he, " rmj (chamar) or armj (chamera) really denotes oinov (wine,) and �mj (chamets) or axmj (charnetsa) really denotes oxov (vinegar.) Again, arwm (mura) really signifies smurna (myrrh,) and arrm (murera) really signifies colh (gall.) If, then, we suppose that the original Chaldee text was arwmb fylh armj (chamera heleet bemura) wine mingled with myrrh, which is not at all improbable, as it is the reading of the Syriac version, at Mark xv. 23, it might easily have been mistaken for arrmb fylh axmj (chametsa haleet bemurera) vinegar mingled with gall." This is a more ingenious conjecture than that of Michaelis. See Marsh's notes to Michaelis, vol. iii., part 2d. p. 127-28. But as that kind of sour wine, which was used by the Roman soldiers and common people, appears to have been termed oinov, and vin aigre is sour wine, it is not difficult to reconcile the two accounts, in what is most material to the facts here recorded.

John Gill's Bible Commentary

The design of it was to cheer their spirits, and intoxicate their heads, that they might not be sensible of their pain and misery. But such a cup was not allowed Christ at the public expense, nor were the honourable women so compassionate to him; or if it was sent him, the soldiers did not give it him, but another potion in the room of it; indeed Mark says, they gave him �wine mingled with myrrh�, ( Mark 15:23); which was either a cordial provided by his friends, and given him, and is different from what the soldiers gave him here; or the sense is, that they gave him the cup, that was so called, but not the thing; but instead of it, vinegar mingled with gall . The Vulgate Latin and Ethiopic versions, instead of �vinegar�, read �wine�; and so does Munster�s Hebrew Gospel, and so it is read in Beza�s most ancient copy, and in another exemplar, and in one of Stephens�s; and which may be easily reconciled with the common reading, and that with Mark; for the wine they gave him was flat and sour, and no other or better than vinegar; and real vinegar may be so called, as this seems to be; and the rather, because vinegar was a part of the Roman soldiers� allowance, and so they had it ready at hand; (see Gill on � John 19:29�). As also, because it was thought that vinegar was useful to prolong the life of a man ready to die; and therefore they might choose to give it to Christ, that he might live the longer in misery: so the Jews write, that �if a man swallows a wasp or hornet alive, he cannot live; but they must give him to drink a quarter, zgm� aljd , �of vinegar of Shamgaz�, (which the gloss says is strong vinegar,) and it is possible he may live a little while, until he hath given orders to his house.�

The Arabic version, instead of �gall�, reads �myrrh�; nor are we to suppose that this drink was mixed with the gall of a beast itself, but with something that was as bitter as �gall�; as wormwood, or myrrh, or any other bitter, to make it distasteful. This potion of vinegar with gall, was an aggravating circumstance in our Lord�s sufferings, being given to him when he had a violent thirst upon him; and was an emblem of the bitter cup of God�s wrath, he had already tasted of in the garden, and was about to drink up: the Jews had a notion of vinegar�s being expressive of the chastisements of the Messiah; the words in ( Ruth 2:14), they say f1681 , �speak of the king Messiah; �come thou hither�, draw nigh to the kingdom; �and eat of the bread�, this is the bread of the kingdom, �and dip thy morsel in the vinegar�, �yrwsyyh wla , �these are the chastisements�, as it is said in ( Isaiah 53:5), �he was wounded for our transgressions�.�

By this offer was fulfilled the prophecy in ( Psalm 69:21), and which he did not altogether refuse; for it follows, and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink : not because it was the vinegar of Gentiles, which was forbidden by the Jewish canons f1681 , lest it should have been offered to idols; but because he would make use of no means either to prolong his life, or discompose his mind; and that it might appear he knew what he did, and that he was not afraid nor unwilling to die; though he thought fit to taste of it in a superficial way, to show he did not despise nor resent their offer; and that he was really athirst, and ready to drink a more disagreeable potion than that.

Matthew Henry Commentary

Greek Textus Receptus