What Does Numbers 33:8 Mean in the King James?
And they departed from before Pi-hahiroth, and passed through the midst of the sea into the wilderness, and went three days’ journey in the wilderness of Etham, and pitched in Marah.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The sea can be behind you while the ground where you pitch is still named for bitterness.
THE MEANING
You can cross a real threshold and still find yourself camped in a bitter place. The crossing happened, the wilderness journey continued, and Marah is where you are now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that if a crossing was real, the next place must already feel sweet.
THE ROOT
מָרָה
Marah
GROWS FROM
מרר
To be bitter, or become bitter.
“Marah, the place-name meaning “bitter”” in this verse is Marah. Marah (מָרָה, Marah, “bitter”) carries the taste of the stop in its name, from מרר (marar, “to be bitter”). The same root appears in מָרָא (Mara, “bitter,” Ruth 1:20) and מְרֹרִים (merorim, “bitter herbs,” Exodus 12:8), naming bitterness as both a condition and a taste encountered.
ALSO GROWS
Mara: “Bitter”; Naomi asks to be called Mara in Ruth 1:20.
מָרָא
The same bitter name can describe a person’s present condition, not only a place.
merorim: “Bitter herbs”; Exodus 12:8.
מְרֹרִים
The root names a taste that can be encountered directly, as the waters at Marah are.
THE PATTERN
A real passage through danger does not make the next stretch free of hardship.
So Moses brought Israel from the Red sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water.Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools.These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.THE THREAD
And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah.Numbers names the stop; Exodus spells out what that name holds: the waters themselves are bitter, so the place is called Marah. The shared root מרר (marar, “to be bitter”) makes the name and the people’s taste one discovery.
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