Marah (Bible)

Marah (Hebrew: מָרָה‎‎ meaning 'bitter') is one of the locations which the Torah identifies as having been travelled through by the Israelites, during the Exodus.

The liberated Israelites set out on their journey in the desert, somewhere in the Sinai Peninsula. It becomes clear that they are not spiritually free. Reaching Marah, the place of a well of bitter water, bitterness and murmuring, Israel receives a first set of divine ordinances and the foundation of the Shabbat. The shortage of water there is followed by a shortness of food. Moses throws a log into the bitter water, making it sweet. Later God sends manna and quail. The desert is the ground where God acquires his people. The 'murmuring motifi' is a recurring perspective of the wandering Jewish people.

Marah - bitterness - a fountain at the sixth station of the Israelites (Ex. 15:23, 24; Num. 33:8) whose waters were so bitter that they could not drink them. On this account they murmured against Moses, who, under divine direction, cast into the fountain "a certain tree" which took away its bitterness, so that the people drank of it. This was probably the 'Ain Hawarah, where there are still several springs of water that are very "bitter," distant some 47 miles from 'Ayun Mousa.

The narrative concerning Marah in the Book of Exodus states that the Israelites had been wandering in the desert for three days without water; according to the narrative, Marah had water, but it was undrinkably bitter, hence the name, which means bitterness. In the text, when the Israelites reach Marah they complain about the undrinkability, so Moses complains to Yahweh, and Yahweh responds by showing Moses a certain piece of wood, which Moses then throws into the water, making it sweet and fit to drink. Some biblical scholars see the narrative about Marah as having originated as an aetiological myth seeking to justify its name.

The text goes on to state that in this location, a decree and a law were made by Yahweh for the Israelites, and that Yahweh tested them. However, according to textual scholars the narrative concerning the bitter water comes from the Jahwist account, while the mention of law and testing is actually part of the Elohist account; textual scholars view this as the Elohist version of the naming of Massah, since the triconsonantal root of the Hebrew word used for tested here (נסה) is very similar to that for Massah (מסה), and the later explanation of Massah connects the name to the same root (נסה). The Talmud argues that the text is referring to three additional laws being added to the Noahide laws, namely that tribunals should be created, children should obey parents, and that the Sabbath should be observed. In the biblical text, Yahweh also states that he would not bring any diseases upon the Israelites if they obey Yahweh's decrees; biblical scholars regard this as a redactional addition, and appears to be an attempt to distract the reader from the implication in the previous verse that laws were given by Yahweh before Sinai was reached.

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