This was a thin sour wine, that might be called either wine or vinegar, there being other words for wine of a better quality. It was the drink of the reapers and of the Roman soldiers. It is represented as intoxicating, and as irritating to the teeth. "As vinegar upon nitre [natron, an alkali], so is he that singeth songs to a heavy heart." Proverbs 25:20 . Its acidity is referred to in Proverbs 10:26 .
Vinegar was offered to the Lord mingled with myrrh or gall, and He refused it; but He received the vinegar when He had said, 'I thirst,' according to the prophecy "In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." Numbers 6:3; Ruth 2:14; Psalm 69:21; Matthew 27:34,48 , etc.