They also gave me gall for my food. In my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink.
⛓ Read Psalm 69 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Quotation2
A formal citation — high verbal volume, often introduced by a saying-formula.
'I am thirsty,' said 'that the Scripture might be fulfilled,' and the answering vinegar (oxos) draw directly on 'for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.' John signals fulfillment explicitly; high volume and the primary referent.
High confidenceThe soldiers 'offering him vinegar' enacts Psalm 69:21, 'for my thirst they gave me vinegar (sour wine) to drink' — the mocking drink of the righteous sufferer. Direct lexical correspondence (oxos); a core Passion-psalm fulfillment.
High confidenceAllusion4
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
The drink offered at the cross — here 'wine mixed with myrrh' — and again the vinegar of v. 36 derive from the psalmist's complaint, 'they gave me also gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.' Matthew sharpens the link to 'gall,' but Mark's offered drugged/bitter wine already evokes the psalm's hostile offering. Psalm 69 is one of the two governing passion psalms here, so the volume and coherence are high.
High confidence'One ran, and filling a sponge full of vinegar... gave it to him to drink' directly enacts 'in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.' The Greek oxos ('sour wine/vinegar') matches LXX Psalm 68:22 exactly, making this the chapter's second strong contact with Psalm 69 and a near-quotation of the offered drink.
High confidence'They gave me poison (gall) for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink' — directly behind 'they gave him sour wine to drink mixed with gall.' Matthew assimilates the wine-and-myrrh of tradition to the Psalm's gall to make the allusion explicit.
High confidence'For my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink' — the sponge filled with vinegar (sour wine) put to Jesus' mouth on a reed is the offering-of-vinegar of Psalm 69:21, here at the moment of death (a second invocation of the gall-and-vinegar text).
High confidence