They gave me also gall, &c.— This was only figurative in respect of David, as it is here expressed, but it was literally true of our Saviour on the cross; and therefore what follows may as truly, and perhaps more properly, be considered as predictions of the punishment which should be inflicted on the persecutors of our Lord, than as imprecations of David against his enemies. See the first note on this psalm. The word ראשׁ rosh, rendered gall, is frequently joined with wormwood. See Deuteronomy 29:18. And from a comparison of this place with John 19:29. Bochart thinks the herb ראשׁ rosh, in this psalm, to be the same as the evangelist calls hyssop; a species of which in Judaea, he proves from Isaac Ben-Omran, an Arabic writer, to be bitter; adding, that it is so bitter as not to be eatable. And Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Nonnus, took the hyssop mentioned by St. John to be poisonous. Theophylact expressly tells us, that hyssop was added as being deleterious, or poisonous; and Nonnus, in his paraphrase, says,
One gave the deadly acid, mix'd with hyssop.
See Bochart, vol. 2: p. 590 and Parkhurst on the word ראשׁ.