Hebrew word · H4845
מְרֵרָה
mererati
gall
Gall or bile, the bitter fluid, or the gall bladder itself. It comes from mrr, 'to be bitter', and is closely related to mərōrâ, 'gall, venom' (Job 20:14, 25; Deut 32:32, 'bitter clusters').
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
gall
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
- Range of meaning
Gall or bile, the bitter fluid, or the gall bladder itself. It comes from mrr, 'to be bitter', and is closely related to mərōrâ, 'gall, venom' (Job 20:14, 25; Deut 32:32, 'bitter clusters').
- Against the English
KJV, BSB and YLT have 'gall'. WEB has 'bile'. In modern English, 'gall' usually means nerve or impudence ('the gall of him'), so 'bile' is clearer to most readers today.
- How it drifted
English 'gall' moved from the body fluid toward 'bitterness' and then 'brazen nerve' (19th century onward). The physical sense has mostly faded for ordinary readers.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Job 20:25 has Zophar describe the wicked man pierced so that 'the glittering point comes out of his gall (mərōrātô)', the same picture of a fatal arrow. Gall and bitterness are also linked in Deut 29:18 and Lam 3:15, 19 ('wormwood and gall'), though those verses use a different word (rōʾš).
Where it appears
Job · 1
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Job 16:13 מְרֵרָֽתִי׃ gall my
His archers surround me. He pierces my kidneys without mercy and spills my gall on the ground.
Here: 'My gall', the bile or gall bladder, named after its bitter taste (root mrr, 'bitter'). An arrow through the gall bladder was a classic fatal wound (Job 20:25). The word's link to 'bitterness' echoes Job's repeated 'bitterness of soul' (7:11; 10:1).
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.