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21.And they put gall into my meat. Here he again repeats that his enemies carry their cruelty towards him to the utmost extent in their power. He speaks metaphorically when he describes them as mingling gall or poison with his meat, (85) and vinegar with his drink; even as it is said in Jeremiah,
“ I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood,
and give them water of gall to drink.” (Jer_9:15)
But still the Apostle John justly declares that this Scripture was fulfilled when the soldiers gave Christ vinegar to drink upon the cross, (Joh_19:28;) for it was requisite that whatever cruelty the reprobate exercise towards the members of Christ, should by a visible sign be represented in Christ himself. We have stated on the same principle, in our remarks upon Psa_22:18, that when the soldiers parted the garments of Christ among them, that verse was appropriately quoted, “ parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots;” although David’ object was to express by figurative language that he was robbed, and that all his goods were violently taken from him, and made a prey of by his enemies. The natural sense must, however, be retained; which is, that the holy prophet had no relief afforded him; and that he was in a condition similar to that of a man who, already too much afflicted, found, as an additional aggravation of his distress, that his meat was poisoned, and his drink rendered nauseous by the bitter ingredients with which it had been mingled.
(85) The word ראש, rosh, here denominated gall, is thought by Celsius, Michaelis, Boothroyd, and others, to be hemlock According to Dr Adam Clarke and Williams, it refers to bitters in general, and particularly those of a deleterious nature. Bochart, from a comparison of this passage with Joh_19:29, thinks that ראש, rosh, is the same herb as the Evangelist calls ὑσσωπος, “” a species of which growing in Judea, he proves from Isaac Ben Orman, an Arabian writer, to be so bitter, as not to be eatable. Theophylact expressly tells us that the hyssop was added as being deleterious or poisonous; and ‘’ paraphrase is, “ gave the deadly acid mixed with hyssop.” See Parkhurst on ראש. The word occurs in Deu_29:18; and is, in the latter place, rendered poison In Hos_10:4, it is rendered hemlock; and in Amo_6:12, it is put in apposition with a word there translated hemlock, although the same word is also rendered wormwood
Vinegar, we conceive, here means sour wine, such as was given to slaves or prisoners in the East. Persons in better circumstances used lemons or pomegranates to give their drink a grateful acidity. It was therefore a great insult offered to a royal personage to give him in his thirst the refreshment of a slave or of a wretched prisoner; and David employs this figure to express the insults which were offered to him by his enemies. See Harmer ’s Observations, volume 2, pp. 158, 159.