Gall is a bitter poison in the prophets and bile in the body. At Golgotha it was in a cup handed to Jesus, and he tasted it and said no. Here is what it was, and why that refusal matters.
What is gall in the Bible? It is the English word for something intensely bitter and harmful: a poisonous plant in the Hebrew prophets, bile in the human body, and a bitter additive in the wine offered to Jesus at his crucifixion.
Matthew 27:34 says Jesus tasted that wine mixed with gall and refused it. He went through the cross clear-minded, and only at the very end took a little sour wine and said, It is finished.
One English word, then, covers a plant, a body fluid and a poisoned heart. See all three and the passages read as one story.
English Bibles use gall for several original words, and they are not interchangeable.
A poisonous plant, and by extension poison or venom generally. The Strong's entry for H7219 shows the King James rendering it gall nine times, and venom, poison and hemlock once each. The exact plant is unknown. Deuteronomy 29:18, Jeremiah 8:14 and Lamentations 3:19 all use it.
Bile, named for its bitterness, from the root marar, to be bitter. It appears once, in Job 16:13: he poureth out my gall upon the ground. A close relative, merorah, shows up in Job 20:14 and 20:25.
Bile in ordinary Greek, stretched to cover bitter substances in general. It appears twice in the New Testament, in the drink at the cross (Matthew 27:34) and the gall of bitterness (Acts 8:23). It is also the word the Greek Old Testament uses in Psalm 69:21.
Rosh travels with la'anah, wormwood: a root that beareth gall and wormwood. Wormwood is bitter. Rosh is bitter and poisonous. Together they describe something that tastes terrible and does real damage.
When the prophets say gall, they mean something that tastes bad and hurts you from the inside.
Moses warns that one person turning to other gods is a root that beareth gall and wormwood. One poisonous root spoils the whole field.
Job describes his pain as if his insides had been spilled. Scripture lets him say it, and the book of Job never scolds him for that honesty.
Judah admits God has given us water of gall to drink. That came true in Jeremiah's own lifetime, in the Babylonian siege and exile.
After Jerusalem falls, the poet remembers his affliction and misery, the wormwood and the gall. Three verses later he turns: his compassions fail not, they are new every morning. That turn is the heart of what Lamentations is about.
A righteous sufferer, mocked by enemies, says they gave him gall and vinegar. The Gospel writers heard this psalm at the crucifixion.
At Golgotha Jesus is offered wine mixed with gall. He tastes it and will not drink.
Peter tells Simon in Samaria that he is in the gall of bitterness. The poisonous plant has become a condition of the heart.
Gall is what corruption tastes like. The Old Testament diagnoses it, and in the Gospels Jesus is handed a cup of it.
Here is the part most articles skip. Matthew and Mark describe the same moment with different ingredients.
“There they offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall; but after tasting it, he refused to drink it.”
Matthew 27:34“Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.”
Mark 15:23Most scholars think Matthew used Mark as a source, so the change looks deliberate. The likeliest reason is Psalm 69:21. In the Greek Old Testament that verse says they gave me cholē for my food and vinegar for my thirst. Matthew is the Gospel most eager to show Scripture fulfilled, so he names the drink with the psalm's own word and makes sure you hear the echo.
Myrrhed wine. Myrrh is a bitter resin, the same gift the magi brought to the child Jesus with gold and frankincense. Mark tells you what was in the cup.
Wine mixed with gall. The Greek word is flexible enough to cover a bitter additive, and it points straight back to Psalm 69. Matthew tells you what the cup meant.
The King James reads vinegar, following later copies that matched Matthew even closer to the psalm. Older manuscripts read wine. Either way, it is one cup described from two angles, not two cups.
Why would anyone offer a condemned man drugged wine? There is a Jewish tradition behind it. The Babylonian Talmud records a teaching that the court “gives one who is being led out to be killed a grain [koret] of frankincense in a cup of wine in order to confuse his mind”, citing Proverbs 31:6, and adds that “The prominent women of Jerusalem would donate this drink and bring it to those being led out to be killed.”
Hold that loosely. The Talmud was written down centuries after Jesus and names frankincense, not myrrh. It shows a custom of mercy in Jewish memory. It does not prove who handed Jesus this cup, and in Matthew it is the soldiers.
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Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
Neither Gospel gives his reason. Matthew adds one detail Mark does not: he tasted it first. So he knew what it was, and he turned it down. Past that, three readings are worth knowing.
If the drink was meant to dull the senses, refusing it meant facing death with a clear head. This is the most common reading.
At the Last Supper he said he would not drink again from the fruit of the vine until he drank it new in the kingdom of God (Mark 14:25). The weakness: hours later he does receive sour wine.
In Matthew the offer comes from soldiers about to gamble for his clothes. A drink too bitter to swallow could be one more cruel joke.
He refused the painkiller so he could feel every ounce of pain, because sin had to be paid for in a full measure of suffering.
He refused something that would cloud his mind. The Gospels never measure his pain as a quantity he had to reach. They show what he did with his clarity.
Our reading at Sound of Heaven is the first one, held with open hands about the other two. Jesus declined to be sedated, and the reason shows in what he did with a clear mind. He prayed for the men who crucified him. He promised a dying criminal paradise that same day. He placed his mother in John's care. He prayed the Psalms out loud. You can walk through what Jesus said on the cross and see that none of it comes out of a fog.
We do not accept the version where he refused relief to maximize his suffering, as if the Father needed a set amount of agony before he could forgive. That makes the Father the one demanding the pain, and it is not the Father Jesus shows us. At the cross God in Christ takes the worst people can do and answers it with forgiveness. Refusing the cup was love keeping its eyes open.
According to Matthew 27:34, what did Jesus do with the wine mixed with gall?
Matthew says after tasting it, he refused to drink it. Mark simply says he did not take it. The drink he did receive came later, sour wine on a sponge, right before he said It is finished.
Blending the drinks at the cross together causes most of the confusion. The wine with gall or myrrh comes at the start, on arrival at Golgotha outside the city wall. He refuses it. The drink he takes comes at the very end.
Wine mixed with myrrh (Mark) or gall (Matthew), offered before he is nailed up. Tasted and refused.
Luke 23:36. Soldiers mock him and offer him wine vinegar. Luke presents it as part of the taunting.
John 19:29. Sour wine on a sponge, lifted on a stalk of hyssop. This one he receives.
“A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”
John 19:29 to 30The Greek word is oxos, the cheap sour wine ordinary people and soldiers drank. It was not a sedative. John frames it as fulfillment, and Psalm 69:21 is again the likely text: for my thirst they gave me vinegar.
Why take this one and not the first? Because this one dulled nothing, and his work was done. Tetelestai, it is finished, is the word of someone who knows exactly what he has just completed. The covenant was being made new in his blood, and within that same generation the old order it replaced came to its end when the temple fell in AD 70.
“For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.”
Acts 8:23, KJVSimon had been a famous magician in Samaria. He believed, was baptized, and then watched the Spirit come on people when Peter and John laid hands on them. He offered money to buy that ability for himself. Peter's answer is fierce, and then it opens a door: repent, pray, and perhaps the intent of your heart will be forgiven. Simon's last words in the story are a request for prayer (Acts 8:24).
The gall language comes straight from Deuteronomy 29:18, and Hebrews 12:15 picks up the same root of bitterness. Simon was that root: someone inside the new community whose heart was set on power for himself. Peter does not call him possessed or cursed. He calls a poisoned motive by its name so it can be pulled up.
Modern English gave gall another meaning, nerve, as in the gall of that guy. That sense is not in the Bible, though trying to buy the Holy Spirit is a fair example of it.
Bitterness usually starts as a wound. Someone hurt you, and the hurt was never named or answered. Scripture takes that seriously. Job pours out his gall on the ground, and Lamentations remembers the wormwood before it finds mercy. You are allowed to say it hurt.
One thing said plainly. The root of bitterness passages get used on people who were abused, to tell them their anger is the real problem. That is a misuse. Deuteronomy and Hebrews warn about a heart turning away from God, not about a victim naming what was done to them. Forgiveness is real and it frees you, and it never requires calling a wrong fine or walking back into harm.
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Gall in the Bible is what sin and sorrow taste like: idolatry in Deuteronomy, suffering in Job, judgment in Jeremiah, grief in Lamentations. At Golgotha all of it is handed to Jesus in a cup.
He refused the version that would have numbed him. He stayed present for everyone at that cross, including the ones who put him there. And he drank the cup he had accepted in Gethsemane all the way down, until he could say it was finished.
That is why bitterness does not get the last word in anyone's story. The One who tasted gall and turned it away is the same One who turns poisoned hearts into living ones. Simon's, and ours.
For related ground, see what the cross represents, why Jesus was crucified, the week that led to Golgotha and forgiving seventy times seven.
Gall is the Bible's word for bitter poison and bile; at the cross Jesus tasted wine mixed with it, refused it, stayed clear-minded to love to the end, and took only sour wine as he finished.
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Gall is the English word Bibles use for something intensely bitter and harmful. In the Hebrew Bible it usually translates rosh, a poisonous plant often paired with wormwood, as in Deuteronomy 29:18 and Lamentations 3:19. In Job 16:13 it translates a word for bile. In the New Testament it translates the Greek cholē, used for the wine mixed with gall offered to Jesus in Matthew 27:34 and for Simon's gall of bitterness in Acts 8:23.
The Gospels do not state his reason. Matthew says he tasted it and then refused, so he knew what it was. The most likely reading is that the drink was meant to dull the senses and Jesus chose to face death clear-minded. That clarity shows in what he did next: he forgave his executioners, promised paradise to a dying man, cared for his mother and prayed the Psalms.
Mark 15:23 says wine mixed with myrrh, and Matthew 27:34 says wine mixed with gall. Most scholars think Matthew used Mark and chose his word to echo Psalm 69:21, which in the Greek Old Testament uses the same word for gall. Myrrh is bitter, and the Greek word could cover a bitter additive, so both describe the same cup. Mark gives the ingredient and Matthew gives the meaning. There is no need to invent two different drinks.
Peter says it to Simon, a Samaritan magician who believed, was baptized, and then tried to buy the power to give the Holy Spirit. The phrase borrows Deuteronomy 29:18, where a root bearing gall and wormwood poisons the whole community. Peter is naming a motive poisoned by the hunger for power and control. He also tells Simon to repent and pray, and Simon asks for prayer. It is a hard diagnosis with the door left open.
They are paired so often they can sound like one thing. Wormwood translates the Hebrew la'anah, a bitter plant. Gall usually translates rosh, a plant that was bitter and poisonous, a word sometimes used for snake venom. Together they describe something that tastes awful and does real damage. Deuteronomy 29:18, Jeremiah 9:15, Lamentations 3:19 and Amos 6:12 all use the pairing.