“They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”
The bitter statement that they gave the psalmist poison for food and wine for thirst articulates the ultimate betrayal: that the offer of sustenance proves to be destructive. The imagery suggests that even acts of supposed mercy are poisoned, turned into instruments of harm. The reference to poisoned food and vinegar as drink echoes traditions of ultimate contempt and degradation. This verse articulates that the persecution extends even to the offering of basic necessities, which become weapons.
Church Fathers on Psalms 69:21
1. We have been born into this world, and added to the people of God, at that period wherein already the herb from a grain of mustard seed has spread out its branches; wherein already the leaven, which at first was contemptible, has leavened three measures, that is, the whole round world repeopled by the three sons of Noe: Genesis 9:19 for from East and West and North and South shall come they that shall sit down with the Patriarchs, Matthew 8:11 while those shall have been…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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