Bitter; Bitterness bit'-er, bit'-er-nes (mar, or marah = "bitter" (literally or figuratively); also (noun) "bitterness" or (adverb) "bitterly"; "angry," "chafed," "discontented," "heavy" (Genesis 27:34, Exodus 15:23, Numbers 5:18, Numbers 5:19, Numbers 5:23, Numbers 5:24, Numbers 5:27, Esther 4:1, Job 3:20, Psalms 64:3, Proverbs 5:4, Proverbs 27:7, Ecclesiastes 7:26, Isaiah 5:20, Jeremiah 2:19, Jeremiah 4:18, Ezekiel 27:31, Amos 8:10, Habakkuk 1:6); the derivatives marar, meror, and merorah, used with the same significance according to the context, are found in Exodus 1:14, Exodus 12:8, Numbers 9:11, Job 13:26, Isaiah 24:9. The derivati ves meri and meriri occur in Deuteronomy 32:24, Job 23:2 (margin); and tamrur, is found in Jeremiah 6:26, Jeremiah 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 Colossians 3:19, James 3:11, James 3:14, Revelation 8:11, Revelation 10:9, Revelation 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) Numbers 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