Hebrew word · H4787
מׇרָּה
marat
bitterness
Literally 'the bitterness of his nefesh'. Nefesh means throat, breath, life, appetite, the living self. Joined to the root mrr ('bitter'), it is a fixed Hebrew way of describing grief, anguish, or the deep distress of the wronged and the desperate.
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
bitterness
Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
From the study of Proverbs 14:10
- Range of meaning
Literally 'the bitterness of his nefesh'. Nefesh means throat, breath, life, appetite, the living self. Joined to the root mrr ('bitter'), it is a fixed Hebrew way of describing grief, anguish, or the deep distress of the wronged and the desperate.
- Against the English
English 'bitterness' often suggests resentment or a grudge. In Hebrew, a 'bitter soul' means anguish and sorrow: the taste of suffering, not necessarily resentment.
- How it drifted
In modern English 'bitter' as a trait of character ('a bitter person') has largely taken over from 'bitter' as pain or grief.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Hannah, childless, was 'bitter of soul' and wept (1 Sam 1:10). The Shunammite woman whose son died: 'her soul is bitter, and the LORD has hidden it from me' (2 Kgs 4:27), where even the prophet cannot see her grief. Those 'bitter of soul' gathered to David (1 Sam 22:2). Job speaks 'in the bitterness of my soul' (Job 7:11; 10:1).
Where it appears
Proverbs · 1
-
Proverbs 14:10 מָרַּ֣ת [the] bitterness of
The heart knows its own bitterness, and no stranger shares in its joy.
Here: 'The bitterness of'. This exact noun appears only here in the Bible, but it belongs to the familiar Hebrew wording for deep anguish, the 'bitter soul' of a grieving or wronged person.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.