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( ðéêñßá )
‘Bitter’ means lit. [Note: literally, literature.] ‘biting’ (A. S. [Note: Anglo-Saxon.] bîtan, ‘to bite’), and ðéêñüò , ‘sharp’ (from the same root as pungo, ‘pike,’ ‘peak’), ôὸ ðéêñüí , as that which has an acrid, pungent taste, is opposed to ôὸ ãëõêý (Jam_3:11). In Septuagint ðéêñßá is often used to translate øֹàùׁ , a bitter and poisonous plant, which is always used figuratively. Moses says that the man or woman, family or tribe, that turns from Jahweh will be ‘a root that beareth gall and wormwood’ ( ῥßæá ἄíù öýïõóá ἐí ÷ïëῇ êáὶ ðéêñßᾳ , Deu_29:18). There is an echo of this saying in Heb_12:15, where any member of the Church who introduces wrong doctrines or practices, and so leads others astray, becomes a ‘root of bitterness springing up’ ( ῥßæá ðéêñßáò ἄíù öýïõóá ); and there may be another echo of it in Act_8:23 (Revised Version margin), where Peter predicts that Simon Magus will ‘become gall (or a gall root) of bitterness’ ( åἰò ÷ïëὴí ðéêñßáò ὁñῶ óå ὄíôá ) by his evil influence over others, if he remains as he now is. But ÷ïëὴí ðéêñßáò may be a genitive of apposition and the Apostle may mean that Simon is even now ‘in Bitterkeit, Bosheit, Feindseligkeit, wie in Galle’ (H. J. Holtzmann, Apostelgeschichte3, 1901, ad loc.). In Rom_3:14 bitterness of speech is joined with cursing, and in Eph_4:31 ðéêñßá is an inward disposition (cf. æῆëïí ðéêñüí , Jam_3:14) which all Christians are to put away in order that they may be ‘kind one to another, tender-hearted.’
James Strahan.