"They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst." (Psalm 69:21 NIV)
"There they offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall; but after tasting it, he refused to drink it." (Matthew 27:34 NIV)
"I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall." (Lamentations 3:19 NIV)
“You’ve got a lot of gall.” We don’t hear this expression much anymore, but its use is clear; another person has offended someone by doing or saying something irritating. Our bodies have a gall bladder, an organ designed to store and concentrate bile from the liver. But which meaning appears in Scripture? What is gall in the Bible?
The Bible refers to gall in various places, with various implied meanings.
Depending on its context, the literal meaning of gall can be a sour or toxic substance, such as the bile found in the liver (Job 16:13).
Gall is also used to denote a serpent’s poisonous spew (Job 20:14) or a bitter herb (Deuteronomy 29:18).
A rare reference to gall as life is in Job 20:25 when Job says, “It is drawn forth and comes out of his body; the glittering point comes out of his gallbladder.” This reference to the liver implies that life is leaving the body because the liver is part of the “seat of being.” As the International Bible Encyclopedia explains, “The viscera (heart, liver, kidneys) were supposed by the ancients to be the seat of the mind, feelings, affections: the highest organs of the psyche, ‘the soul.’”
A figurative use of the word gall is found in Acts 8:23, the “gall of bitterness,” which fits the “lot of gall” expression we use today.
However, the most dramatic reference to gall in the Bible comes in the narrative of Jesus on the cross (Matthew 27:34).
Let’s look deeper at Gall’s meaning each time the Bible talks about it.
Gall finds its first mention in Job 16:13, “his archers surround me. He slashes open my kidneys and does not spare; he pours out my gall on the ground.” In this instance, gall refers to bile found in the liver (so, like in Job 20:25, gall poured on the ground means life exiting the body).
Another direct mention is Lamentations 3:19. The author (most likely Jeremiah) compares his wanderings and afflictions to wormwood and hemlock (gall).
Gall is used as a reference to other substances elsewhere in the Old Testament. It refers to serpent poison in Deuteronomy 32:33 and Job 20:16. Hosea 10:4 depicts gall as hemlock. Originally, gall most likely represents a bitter, toxic plant (perhaps the poppy) and is linked with wormwood (Deuteronomy 29:18; Jeremiah 9:15; Lamentations 3:19). We see the “water of gall” in Jeremiah 8:14 and 23:15.
We find another use of gall when Jesus was on the cross. “[the Roman soldiers] offered Him wine to drink, mixed with gall, but when He tasted it, He would not drink it” (Matthew 27:34).
The last use of gall in Acts 8:23 is figurative. Peter rebuked the magician Simon for wanting to buy the power of the Holy Spirit. Here gall denotes extreme wickedness.
In various instances, gall describes hemlock (a poisonous herb). According to Easton’s Bible Dictionary, the different Hebrew words used include mereerah, signifying “that which is bitter.” The word is applied to the bile secreted by the liver and its strong sour taste.
Rosh is another Hebrew word commonly translated as gall in our Bible. It is translated as hemlock in Hosea 10:4. Gall mixed with other liquids was most likely used in ancient cultures to stupefy those who drank it. By itself, it can be deadly. Historians believe hemlock was the poison that Socrates ingested when he was sentenced to death.
In some cases, it is compared to wormwood, another bitter plant (used today to brew absinthe).
While gall can be a plant or a bodily substance, the Bible sometimes uses it figuratively to talk about something else.
Wormwood and gall are often figuratively used to talk about infidelity to God, either as a picture of the faithless (Deuteronomy 29:18) or as their penalty. Peter’s words in Acts 8:23 imply that Simon is unfaithful to God by trying to buy the Holy Spirit with money.
The expression “gall of bitterness” also implies that Simon’s soul had been corrupted terribly. E. Cobham Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable describes gall as “bitterest grief; extreme affliction. The ancients taught that grief and joy were subject to the gall, affection to the heart, knowledge to the kidneys, anger to the bile (one of the four humours of the body), and courage or timidity to the liver. The gall of bitterness, like the heart of hearts, means the bitter centre of bitterness, as the heart of hearts means the innermost recesses of the heart or affections. In the Acts it is used to signify ‘the sinfulness of sin,’ which leads to the bitterest grief.”
As mentioned earlier, Job 16:13 and 20:25 uses gall (the substance in the liver) to talk about life being lost. When gall refers to what is in the liver (part of the seat of life, the liver-kidney-heart area that held the soul), gall dripping away could mean “the life dripping out of me.”
While Proverbs 18:8 and 26:22 don’t mention gall, they both refer to the liver and stomach area when describing lies: “The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.” The innermost parts (“inward parts, in some translations) are the kidney-liver-heart area mentioned earlier. These proverbs speak of gossip, whose words can be considered poison (gall), affecting someone’s core. Just as Simon’s wickedness in Acts 8:23 was called the gall of bitterness, a talebearer wounds a person to the core with their vile words.
Moses focused on the bitter root that can reach our innermost parts in Deuteronomy 29:16-20 when he addressed the nation of Israel before they entered the promised land. He reminded the people how they lived while in Egypt and the detestable idols they saw. Moses charged the people to keep their hearts turned to God and to obey Him.
In verse 18, he brings us to the “gall-like” nature of serving other gods: “Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit.”
The bitter root Moses mentions emanates from the heart (Jeremiah 17:9), another one of the inward parts. As Jesus said, “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person” (Matthew 15:18). Also see James 3:14.
Matthew 27:34 refers to the Romans offering wine mixed with gall to Jesus. The wine was a weak vinegar-like beverage imbibed by the Roman soldiers. The passage prophetically fulfills Psalm 69:21, the Messiah being offered vinegar and gall to drink. Mark 15:23 uses the word myrrh, suggesting gall and myrrh were mixed in with the wine—perhaps myrrh masked the gall’s bitter taste.
As used in Matthew 27:34, gall may have been an opiate to dull the senses. The process of crucifixion was harrowing. Criminals hung on the cross for hours (sometimes days), crying in pain, while onlookers mocked them. The Roman soldiers watching may have found this brutal to watch, giving Jesus some gall to hasten his death. Or did they? Did the Romans consciously show mercy, or were they protecting their emotions by deadening the crucifixion victim’s pain?
Jesus, while on the cross, refused the wine. Most likely, he tasted the gall mixed into the wine they gave him. Scholars surmise Jesus rejected the drink because it would have dulled his senses. Vine’s Dictionary adds, “the mixture was doubtless offered to deaden the pain… Christ refused to partake of any such means of alleviation; He would retain all His mental power for the complete fulfillment of the Father’s will.”
Even in death, Jesus was a suffering and obedient servant. Upon the doors of death, a human will die before his head drops. Jesus, in complete submission to the Father and free from any gall to assuage His pain, bows His head before death. Praise God; we have a Savior whose example teaches us to keep our innermost parts pure—free from physical and spiritual bitter roots.
Psalm 69:21 ~ They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
Matthew 27:34 ~ They offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it.
Deuteronomy 29:18 ~ Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood;
Job 16:13 ~ His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground.
Jeremiah 8:14 ~ Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defenced cities, and let us be silent there: for the LORD our God hath put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the LORD.
Acts 8:23 ~ For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.
Photo Credit: Getty Images/Kateryna Onishchuk
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