They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave
me vinegar to drink.--Psalm lxix. 21.
It was not unfrequent that cordials or opiates were given the
unhappy objects sentenced to crucifixion, to blunt the severity of
their agonies, and shorten the period of their sufferings. But, at
the crucifixion of Jesus, no friendly hand presented the soothing
draught. When faint from loss of blood, and parched by burning
fever occasioned by excessive pain, the dying sufferer exclaimed "I
thirst;" a sponge is conveyed on a reed to his parched lips; but,
alas! it is absorbed in a liquid too nauseous, even for one in his
famished state, to drink. Unfeeling wretches! thus to sport with
the sufferings of such a distressed object; thus to mock the wishes
of one in the last agonies of death!
When the son of Jesse, in the cave of Adullam, longed, and said,
"O that one would give me to drink of the water of the well of
Bethlehem, that is by the gate," three of the mightiest heroes in
his valiant little band broke through the opposing ranks of the
Philistine's army, to fetch the wished-for draught; but when the
Son of God required the refreshment of a little water; when his
tongue, from very thirst, clave to the roof of his mouth, and his
strength was dried up as a potsherd, he was insulted with a mixture
of vinegar and gall. But little did the thoughtless multitudes who
surrounded the cross of Jesus imagine, that he was then drinking
to the very dregs, the wormwood, and the gall, of Jehovah's wrath,
which was far more bitter to his soul, than their offensive present
to his taste. He was then redeeming his church from hell, that black
abode of wo, whose wretched inhabitants are deprived of a drop of
water, to assuage their tormenting thirst: and the horrors of the
crucifixion were greatly augmented by the darkness that shrouded the
scene, when the meridian sun was enveloped in the gloom of night.
Blessed Jesus, though Lord of all, thou wast treated worse than
earth's meanest slave.