Did Jesus drink on the cross, or refuse what he was offered?

The passages speak of two different drinks offered hours apart, and Mark himself records both. The first was offered at Golgotha before Jesus was crucified: “wine mingled with myrrh: but he received it not” (Mark 15:23). Matthew adds that he tasted it and would not drink (Matthew 27:34). This was a drugged drink, of the kind that Jewish custom, appealing to Proverbs 31:6, gave a condemned man to dull his senses. The second came about the ninth hour, near the end, after Jesus said “I thirst”: a sponge soaked in the sour wine the soldiers drank, held up to him on a reed (John 19:28–29; Mark 15:36). This one he took. The Greek uses the same verb for both: of the first, ouk elaben, ‘he did not take it’, and of the second, elaben, ‘he took it’ (John 19:30). The entry ‘What was Jesus offered to drink at the cross: vinegar with gall, wine with myrrh, or plain vinegar?’ sets out all the offers.

The difference has a clear reason. Jesus refused a drink meant to cloud his mind, choosing to bear what lay ahead with his senses clear, as he had resolved to drink the cup his Father had given him (John 18:11). At the end he accepted plain sour wine, which moistened his parched mouth for his last loud words and fulfilled the psalm: “in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink” (Psalm 69:21; John 19:28). Mark does not say that Jesus refused the second drink, and John does not say that he accepted the first.