Bitter; Bitterness

bit'-er, bit'-er-nes (mar, or marah = "bitter" (literally or figuratively); also (noun) "bitterness" or (adverb) "bitterly"; "angry," "chafed," "discontented," "heavy" (Gen 27:34; Exod 15:23; Num 5:18; Num 5:19; Num 5:23; Num 5:24; Num 5:27; Esth 4:1; Job 3:20; Ps 64:3; Prov 5:4; Prov 27:7; Eccl 7:26; Isa 5:20; Jer 2:19; Jer 4:18; Ezek 27:31; Amos 8:10; Hab 1:6); the derivatives marar, meror, and merorah, used with the same significance according to the context, are found in Exod 1:14; Exod 12:8; Num 9:11; Job 13:26; Isa 24:9. The derivati ves meri and meriri occur in Deut 32:24; Job 23:2 (margin); and tamrur, is found in Jer 6:26; Jer 31:15. In the New Testament the verb pikraino = "to embitter"; the adjective pikros = "bitter," and the noun pikria, "bitterness," supply the same ideas in Col 3:19; Jas 3:11; Jas 3:14; Rev 8:11; Rev 10:9; Rev 10:10): It will be noted that the word is employed with three principal spheres of application:

(1) the physical sense of taste;

(2) a figurative meaning in the objective sense of cruel, biting words; intense misery resulting from forsaking God, from a life of sin and impurity; the misery of servitude; the misfortunes of bereavement;

(3) more subjectively, bitter and bitterness describe emotions of sympathy;' the sorrow of childlessness and of penitence, of disappointment; the feeling of misery and wretchedness, giving rise to the expression "bitter tears";

(4) the ethical sense, characterizing untruth and immorality as the bitter thing in opposition to the sweetness of truth and the gospel;

(5) Num 5:18 the Revised Version (British and American) speaks of "the water of bitterness that causeth the curse." Here it is employed as a technical term.

Frank E. Hirsch