What does χολή (cholḗ) mean in the Bible?
χολή (cholḗ): Bitter poison symbolizing spiritual corruption or the deepest enmity against God; gall of bitterness
Greek · G5521
χολή
Gall
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χολή G5521
Pronunciation cholḗ
What does χολή (cholḗ) mean in the Bible?
χολή (cholḗ): Bitter poison symbolizing spiritual corruption or the deepest enmity against God; gall of bitterness
Full entry for χολή (G5521) · Open the biblical lexicon
Questions this entry answers
How does the BSB render G5521?
The BSB source-word alignment has 2 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include gall (1), poisoned (1).
Where does χολή (cholḗ) appear in Scripture?
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 27:34. Its strongest book concentrations include Acts (1), Matthew (1).
Source Word Evidence
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders It gall 1× Matthew 27:34
poisoned 1× Acts 8:23
Show sample aligned rows
Usage map
A compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
First aligned row Matthew 27:34
Aligned rows 2
Books represented 2
Matthew 1 Acts 1
Source forms
χολὴν 1x cholēn Acts 8:23
χολῆς 1x cholēs Matthew 27:34
Parsing patterns
Noun - Accusative Feminine Singular 1x Acts 8:23
Noun - Genitive Feminine Singular 1x Matthew 27:34
Evidence Summary
Greek word. Bitter poison symbolizing spiritual corruption or the deepest enmity against God; gall of bitterness
Strong's G5521
Lexical occurrences 2 verses Greek text appearances 2 times Word forms 2 forms 2 references Verse guides 0 guides
Study link Matthew 27:34 Source Gloss
gall
Greek Text Appearances
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
2 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
Matthew 27:34 Noun Genitive Singular Feminine
χολῆς colhv
gall, bitter herbs
Read verse Acts 8:23 Noun Accusative Singular Feminine
χολὴν colhn
gall, bitter herbs
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
Grammatical Forms
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 2 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Form patterns 2 Aligned forms 2 Case pattern Accusative (1) Number pattern Singular (2)
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Genitive · Singular · Feminine Matt 27:34 1×
Accusative · Singular · Feminine Acts 8:23 1×
Where It Appears in Scripture
Where this word appears in Scripture: passage, original form, and sense in context.
Biblical Witnesses
Bitter substance offered to Jesus at crucifixion, possibly myrrh
Metaphorical reference to bitterness and bondage to sin
Word Origins
χολή is built from this root:
Χλόη G5514
Part of These Phrases
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Sources
MorphGNT Strong's Dictionary XML — CC0 1.0 Public Domain
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (morphhb/OSHB) — CC BY 4.0
Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon — CC BY 4.0
Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain