Matthew 27:34 → Psalm 69:21

At Golgotha, before the nails, the soldiers "offered Him wine to drink, mixed with gall (cholē); but after tasting it, He refused to drink it" (Matt 27:34). David's lament had said of the righteous sufferer's enemies, "They poisoned my food with gall and gave me vinegar to quench my thirst" (Ps 69:21) — Hebrew rōʾš ("gall, poison"), which the LXX renders cholē, the very word Matthew alone selects (where Mark 15:23 reads myrrh). This is the distinct gall-clause of Ps 69:21, separate from the vinegar (ḥōmeṣ / LXX oxos) that John 19:28-29 frames as explicit scripture-fulfillment; Matthew narrates the gall-offering without a citation formula, enacting the Psalm rather than naming it. The original setting is David as the LORD's afflicted righteous one, given gall instead of comfort by those who hate him without cause (Ps 69:4); Matthew presents this Davidic lament reaching its appointed fulfillment in great David's greater Son, who tastes the bitterness of the gall and yet refuses the cup of stupefaction, drinking the cup of wrath undulled. The method is Promise-Fulfillment, not typology — there is no person-event correspondence with escalation in view, only the prophetic suffering-voice of the psalm finding its truest speaker at the cross. I classify this an Echo rather than Allusion because Matthew supplies no fulfillment marker and the gall-detail is woven into the narrative texture; yet the cholē match to the LXX of Ps 69:21 is what lifts it above coincidence and grounds the connection. The telos: the One who would not numb Himself against the gall is supremely desirable — He bore the full bitterness of reproach so that, beholding His unflinching love, we are drawn not to pity a sufferer but to treasure the Savior who drank our cup to the dregs and turns, within the same psalm, to lead the needy in praise (Ps 69:32-33).