Mark 15:23

ἐδίδουν αὐτῷ. They offered Him (R.V.). “They tried to give Him”; the conative imperf. Cf. ἐκωλύομεν αὐτόν (Mark 9:38). Mt., as often, has the aor. where Mk has the imperf., and in this case is less accurate.

ἐσμυρνισμένον οἶνον. Wine medicated with myrrh and perhaps other drugs, to act as an anaesthetic. Syr-Sin. has “sweetened with spice.” Mt. has χολή, “gall,” instead of myrrh; both were bitter, and Mt. may have wished to recall Psalms 69:22. Euthymius erroneously suggests that a nauseous drink was offered to Him in mockery to increase His sufferings. It is said that there was a women’s guild in Jerusalem which supplied condemned criminals with potions for deadening pain before execution. “Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto the bitter in soul; Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more” (Proverbs 31:6-7) may have suggested this custom. Christ refused to be stupefied and have His mental faculties obscured; His mind must be free to surrender His life by an act of will. Had He drunk the potion, Christendom might have lost the Words from the Cross. When Dr Johnson was told that without a miracle he could not recover, he said that he would take no more opiates, “for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded.”