מְרָתַיִם

From the study of Jeremiah 50:21

Range of meaning

Found only here. It renders the Akkadian (Babylonian) phrase mat marrati, "land of the Bitter (salt) Water", the marshy lagoon region at the head of the Persian Gulf in far southern Babylonia, heartland of the Chaldean tribes (the "Sealand"). In Hebrew the ending -ayim is the dual (the form for "two" or "a pair"), and the stem echoes mārâ, "to rebel", and mar/mārar, "bitter".

Against the English

All the supplied English versions simply transliterate it as "Merathaim". That is accurate as a place name but loses the pun, which a Hebrew listener could not have missed. Some translations add a footnote giving "double rebellion".

How it drifted

Modern readers do not hear the Hebrew root, so a deliberate nickname turns into an opaque map label.

Used elsewhere in the period

Akkadian texts refer to the nār marratu ("Bitter River", meaning the Gulf and its lagoons) and the surrounding land (HALOT s.v.; Lundbom, Jeremiah 37–52). The Septuagint renders it adverbially as "bitterly" (pikrōs). The Vulgate apparently linked it to Aramaic mārēʾ, "lord", and wrote "land of the rulers".