Jeremiah 9:15

9:15 So then, listen to what I, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all, ¹  say. ²  ‘I will make these people eat the bitter food of suffering and drink the poison water of judgment. ³ 

Jeremiah 23:15

23:15 So then I, the Lord who rules over all, ⁴ 

have something to say concerning the prophets of Jerusalem: ⁵ 

‘I will make these prophets eat the bitter food of suffering

and drink the poison water of judgment. ⁶ 

For the prophets of Jerusalem are the reason ⁷ 

that ungodliness ⁸  has spread throughout the land.’”

Numbers 5:18-24

5:18 Then the priest will have the woman stand before the Lord, uncover the woman’s head, and put the grain offering for remembering in her hands, which is the grain offering of suspicion. The priest will hold in his hand the bitter water that brings a curse. ⁹  5:19 Then the priest will put the woman under oath and say to the her, “If no other ¹⁰  man has had sexual relations with you, and if you have not gone astray and become defiled while under your husband’s authority, may you be free from this bitter water that brings a curse. ¹¹  5:20 But if you ¹²  have gone astray while under your husband’s authority, and if you have defiled yourself and some man other than your husband has had sexual relations with you….” ¹³  5:21 Then the priest will put the woman under the oath of the curse ¹⁴  and will say ¹⁵  to the her, “The Lord make you an attested curse ¹⁶  among your people, ¹⁷  if the Lord makes ¹⁸  your thigh fall away ¹⁹  and your abdomen swell; ²⁰  5:22 and this water that causes the curse will go ²¹  into your stomach, and make your abdomen swell and your thigh rot.” ²²  Then the woman must say, “Amen, amen.” ²³ 

5:23 “‘Then the priest will write these curses on a scroll and then scrape them off into the bitter water. ²⁴  5:24 He will make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and the water that brings a curse will enter her to produce bitterness.

Deuteronomy 32:32

32:32 For their vine is from the stock ²⁵  of Sodom,

and from the fields of Gomorrah. ²⁶ 

Their grapes contain venom,

their clusters of grapes are bitter.

Psalms 69:21

69:21 They put bitter poison ²⁷  into my food,

and to quench my thirst they give me vinegar to drink. ²⁸ 

Lamentations 3:19

ז (Zayin)

3:19 Remember ²⁹  my impoverished and homeless condition, ³⁰ 

which is a bitter poison. ³¹ 

Matthew 27:34

27:34 and offered Jesus ³²  wine mixed with gall to drink. ³³  But after tasting it, he would not drink it.

[9:15]  ¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[9:15]  ² tn Heb “Therefore, thus says the Lord…” The person is shifted from third to first to better conform with English style.

[9:15]  ³ tn Heb “I will feed this people wormwood and make them drink poison water.” “Wormwood” and “poison water” are not to be understood literally here but are symbolic of judgment and suffering. See, e.g., BDB 542 s.v. לַעֲנָה.

[23:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[23:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “Therefore, thus says the Lord…concerning the prophets.” The person is shifted to better conform with English style and the word “of Jerusalem” is supplied in the translation to avoid the possible misunderstanding that the judgment applies to the prophets of Samaria who had already been judged long before.

[23:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “I will feed this people wormwood and make them drink poison water.” For these same words of judgment on another group see 9:15 (9:14 HT). “Wormwood” and “poison water” are not to be understood literally here but are symbolic of judgment and suffering. See, e.g., BDB 542 s.v. לַעֲנָה.

[23:15]  ⁷ tn The compound preposition מֵאֵת (me’et) expresses source or origin (see BDB 86 s.v. אֵת 4.c). Context shows that the origin is in their false prophesying which encourages people in their evil behavior.

[23:15]  ⁸ sn A word that derives from this same Hebrew word is used in v. 11 at the beginning of the Lord’s criticism of the prophet and priest. This is a common rhetorical device for bracketing material that belongs together. The criticism has, however, focused on the false prophets and the judgment due them.

[5:18]  ⁹ tn The expression has been challenged. The first part, “bitter water,” has been thought to mean “water of contention” (so NEB), but this is not convincing. It has some support in the versions which read “contention” and “testing,” no doubt trying to fit the passage better. N. H. Snaith (Leviticus and Numbers [NCB], 129) suggests from an Arabic word that it was designed to cause an abortion – but that would raise an entirely different question, one of who the father of a child was. And that has not been introduced here. The water was “bitter” in view of the consequences it held for her if she was proven to be guilty. That is then enforced by the wordplay with the last word, the Piel participle הַמְאָרֲרִים (ham’ararim). The bitter water, if it convicted her, would pronounce a curse on her. So she was literally holding her life in her hands.

[5:19]  ¹⁰ tn The word “other” is implied, since the woman would not be guilty of having sexual relations with her own husband.

[5:19]  ¹¹ sn Although there would be stress involved, a woman who was innocent would have nothing to hide, and would be confident. The wording of the priest’s oath is actually designed to enable the potion to keep her from harm and not produce the physical effects it was designed to do.

[5:20]  ¹² tn The pronoun is emphatic – “but you, if you have gone astray.”

[5:20]  ¹³ tn This is an example of the rhetorical device known as aposiopesis, or “sudden silence.” The sentence is broken off due to the intensity or emphasis of the moment. The reader is left to conclude what the sentence would have said.

[5:21]  ¹⁴ sn For information on such curses, see M. R. Lehmann, “Biblical Oaths,” ZAW 81 (1969): 74-92; A. C. Thiselton, “The Supposed Power of Words in the Biblical Writings,” JTS 25 (1974): 283-99; and F. C. Fensham, “Malediction and Benediction in Ancient Vassal Treaties and the Old Testament,” ZAW 74 (1962): 1-9.

[5:21]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the priest will say.”

[5:21]  ¹⁶ tn This interpretation takes the two nouns as a hendiadys. The literal wording is “the Lord make you a curse and an oath among the people.” In what sense would she be an oath? The point of the whole passage is that the priest is making her take an oath to see if she has been sinful and will be cursed.

[5:21]  ¹⁷ sn The outcome of this would be that she would be quoted by people in such forms of expression as an oath or a curse (see Jer 29:22).

[5:21]  ¹⁸ tn The construction uses the infinitive construct with the preposition to form an adverbial clause: “in the giving of the Lord…,” meaning, “if and when the Lord makes such and such to happen.”

[5:21]  ¹⁹ tn TEV takes the expression “your thigh” as a euphemism for the genitals: “cause your genital organs to shrink.”

[5:21]  ²⁰ sn Most commentators take the expressions to be euphemisms of miscarriage or stillbirth, meaning that there would be no fruit from an illegitimate union. The idea of the abdomen swelling has been reinterpreted by NEB to mean “fall away.” If this interpretation stands, then the idea is that the woman has become pregnant, and that has aroused the suspicion of the husband for some reason. R. K. Harrison (Numbers [WEC], 111-13) discusses a variety of other explanations for diseases and conditions that might be described by these terms. He translates it with “miscarriage,” but leaves open what the description might actually be. Cf. NRSV “makes your uterus drop, your womb discharge.”

[5:22]  ²¹ tn The verb is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive. It could be taken as a jussive following the words of the priest in the previous section, but it is more likely to be a simple future.

[5:22]  ²² tn Heb “fall away.”

[5:22]  ²³ tn The word “amen” carries the idea of “so be it,” or “truly.” The woman who submits to this test is willing to have the test demonstrate the examination of God.

[5:23]  ²⁴ sn The words written on the scroll were written with a combination of ingredients mixed into an ink. The idea is probably that they would have been washed or flaked off into the water, so that she drank the words of the curse – it became a part of her being.

[32:32]  ²⁵ tn Heb “vine.”

[32:32]  ²⁶ sn Sodom…Gomorrah. The term “vine” is a reference to the pagan deities which, the passage says, find their ultimate source in Sodom and Gomorrah, that is, in the soil of perversion exemplified by these places (cf. Gen 18:20; 19:4-28; Isa 1:10; 3:9; Jer 23:14; Lam 4:6; Ezek 16:44-52; Matt 10:15; 11:23-24).

[69:21]  ²⁷ tn According to BDB 912 s.v. II רֹאשׁ the term can mean “a bitter and poisonous plant.”

[69:21]  ²⁸ sn John 19:28-30 appears to understand Jesus’ experience on the cross as a fulfillment of this passage (or Ps 22:15). See the study note on the word “thirsty” in John 19:28.

[3:19]  ²⁹ tc The LXX records ἐμνήσθην (emnhsqhn, “I remembered”) which may reflect a first singular form זָכַרְתִּי (zakharti) whereas the MT preserves the form זְכָר (zÿkhor) which may be Qal imperative 2nd person masculine singular (“Remember!”) or infinitive construct (“To remember…”). A 2nd person masculine singular imperative would most likely address God. In the next verse נַפְשִׁי (nafshi, “my soul”) is the subject of זְכָר (zÿkhor). If נַפְשִׁי (nafshi) is also the subject here one would expect a 2fs Imperative זִכְרִי (zikhri) a form that stands in the middle of the MT’s זְכָר (zÿkhor) and the presumed זָכַרְתִּי (zakharti) read by the LXX. English versions are split between the options: “To recall” (NJPS), “Remember!” (RSV, NRSV, NASB), “Remembering” (KJV, NKJV), “I remember” (NIV).

[3:19]  ³⁰ tn The two nouns עָנְיִי וּמְרוּדִי (’onyi umÿrudi, lit., “my poverty and my homelessness”) form a nominal hendiadys in which one noun functions adjectivally and the other retains its full nominal sense: “my impoverished homelessness” or “homeless poor” (GKC 397-98 §124.e). The nearly identical phrase is used in Lam 1:7 and Isa 58:7 (see GKC 226 §83.c), suggesting this was a Hebrew idiom. Jerusalem’s inhabitants were impoverished and homeless.

[3:19]  ³¹ tn Heb “wormwood and gall.” The two nouns joined by ו (vav), לַעֲנָה וָרֹאשׁ (la’ana varo’sh, “wormwood and bitterness”) form a nominal hendiadys. The first retains its full verbal sense and the second functions adjectivally: “bitter poison.”

[27:34]  ³² tn Grk “him”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[27:34]  ³³ sn It is difficult to say for certain who gave Jesus this drink of wine mixed with gall (e.g., the executioner, or perhaps women from Jerusalem). In any case, whoever gave it to him most likely did so in order to relieve his pain, but Jesus was unwilling to take it.