What Does Psalm 69:21 Mean?
They put a bitter root in my food, and for my thirst they give me vinegar to drink.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.THE KEY
The cruelty lies in the exchange: food becomes gall, and the drink meant to meet thirst becomes sourness.
THE MEANING
This verse names the pain of a need met with its opposite: food is gall, and thirst is answered with vinegar. Giving something does not make it nourishing; what is offered can deepen the deprivation it should relieve. The verse leaves that pain plain, without disguising it as comfort.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the lie that any response to need counts as care: something can be given while relief is still withheld.
THE ROOT
חֹמֶץ
chomets
GROWS FROM
חמץ
chamets
To be sour or leavened; to ferment.
The word for vinegar carries the sense of something soured. The same root names leavening, linking the sour drink to a change that affects what could nourish; here, what reaches the sufferer’s mouth does not relieve thirst.
ALSO GROWS
chamets: Leavened or sour food.
חָמֵץ
The shared root brings the sourness of the drink into the language of food, deepening the verse’s bitter exchange.
machmetset: Leavening or leavened substance.
מַחְמֶצֶת
This branch also names a substance that changes what is prepared as food, echoing how the expected provision in the verse is altered into bitterness.
יַשְׁקוּנִי
yashquni
GROWS FROM
שקה
shaqah
To give drink or water; to water.
This verb means to cause someone to drink or to water. Hebrew makes the act of supplying liquid explicit, while the liquid supplied here is vinegar; the gesture of provision becomes part of the affliction.
ALSO GROWS
mashqeh: A drink or beverage.
מַשְׁקֶה
The branch names what is meant to be consumed, bringing the verse’s failed provision into focus.
hishqah: He gave drink or watered.
הִשְׁקָה
This verbal form makes the act of supplying water clear, sharpening the contrast between the act and the sour drink given.
לִצְמָאִי
litsama'i
GROWS FROM
צמא
tsama
To thirst or be dry.
The root belongs to the language of both thirst and dryness. It joins bodily need with drought, making the vinegar a sharp answer to an unmet need rather than a neutral drink.
ALSO GROWS
tsame: Thirsty.
צָמֵא
This branch names the state that makes the drink necessary.
tsamaon: Thirst or drought.
צָמָאוֹן
This branch extends the same dryness from the body to the land, giving the verse’s thirst a wider image of deprivation.
THE PATTERN
A bitter drink turns an expected source of relief into a measure of suffering.
And they came to Marah, and could not drink its waters, for they were bitter; so its name was called Marah, bitterness.As one who casts off a garment on a cold day, and as vinegar on soda, so is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.Now a vessel full of sour wine was set there, and they filled a sponge with the sour wine, wrapped it around hyssop, and brought it to his mouth.THE THREAD
They gave him vinegar mixed with gall to drink, and when he had tasted it, he would not drink.Matthew holds gall and vinegar together in the drink offered to the sufferer, echoing the Psalm’s two bitter provisions in one image. The substance reaches the mouth, but it does not become relief.
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