GALL. Two distinct Hebrew words are ren dered by this term in the A. V. 1. cit.h (once Deut. xxxii. 32) ; LXX., xeNi7, Ovdtars, 77-erpos, the name of a bitter plant, classed with wormwood (Dent. xxix. 17 (IS) ; Lam. iii. 19 ; Amos vi. 12) of an intensely disagreeable taste (Ps. lxix. 22 [2I1) ; and described as growing up quickly and luxuriantly (Hos. x. 4). It is used to denote extreme bitterness (Deut. x.xxii. 32), also poison (Deut. xxxii. 33 ; Job xx. 16) ; in both which places it expresses the poisonous and destruc tive nature of sin, wEich, however, is swallowed down by the wicked as if it were wine. Thus the word is always used in a figurative sense. For the plant itself, see ROSH. U)t.h never denotes the animal secretion called gall.
2. jinn* and ntin ; LXX. xoNi7, Kaxa, Siatra; literally bitterness (e.g., Deut. xxxii. 32 ; Job xim 26). Hence it is used for the gall of the human body, a substance of extreme bitterness (e.g., job xvi. 13; xx. 25), and for the poison of serpents (Job XX. 14).
In the N. T. the word gall, xelvii, occurs twice : once in connection with the crucifixion of Jesus (Nlatt. xxvii. 34), They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall' (in Mark xv. 23, wine mingled with myrrh '), where it denotes the juice of a bitter herb, which, being mingled with vinegar or sour wine, formed a drink intended to produce stupe faction and insensibility to pain, but which Jesus, desiring to endure the full bitterness of death for us, having tasted, would not drink (see Words worth and Alford, in loc.) In the second case the word is used respecting Simon the magician (Acts viii. 23), I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness,' cis xoT.I.jv riKputs—' fallen into the gall of bitterness,' where it expresses the poisonous moral condition into which the sorcerer had sunk, in allusion to the notion of the ancients that the poison of the serpent existed in the gall—xokii c'to-irloos iv 7aarpi abroli (Job xx. t4).—I. J.