Matthew 27:34

‘They gave him wine to drink mingled with gall, and when he had tasted it, he would not drink.'

The soldiers then gave him ‘wine mingled with gall'. If meant literally this might mean wine which had been mixed with wormwood, a flavouring testified to in the ancient world, thus indicating a dry wine. But this would contrast with the myrrh-mingled, and therefore strengthened, wine mentioned by Mark 15:23. It may, however, be that Matthew knew that the wine mingled with frankincense, which was often provided by wealthy women of Jerusalem to soothe the sufferings of men who were being crucified, had been taken over by the soldiers and then mingled with gall (a bitter secretion from the liver), or something equally bitter which could be described as gall, as a kind of crude joke. This would tie in with Psalms 69:21, ‘they gave me also gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink', which is the idea that Matthew intends us to see here. It may, however, be that Matthew's description is based on this Psalm and is simply indicating that this strengthened wine was really like offering gall to Jesus as it reminded Him of the suffering that He must face. Whichever way it was it further emphasises the sufferings that Jesus was undergoing in accordance with Scripture.

Note that His tasting of it indicates that He did not see Himself as bound by a promise not to drink wine, otherwise He would not have tasted it. The fact that He did not drink further indicates that He had reason for not doing so, either because the soldiers had doctored it with something bitter (even an over-abundance of myrrh), or because He did not want to take a soporific. For He knew that He had to drink the cup that His Father had given Him to the full. Possibly had it been ordinary wine for the quenching of thirst He would have drunk further.