מָרֹר
bitter herb
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H4844 appears in the Book of Numbers — 1 distinct verse. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Numbers
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
מרר — transliterated mᵉrôr — is a Hebrew noun carrying the sense “bitter herb.” It occurs a mere 3 verses across Scripture. Its uses concentrate in Exodus (33% of all occurrences). Debuting at Exodus 12:8, it then recurs through the corpus. From the same root come מרר, ממרר and מר. See the sense tree, 3-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H4844 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 3
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 3 distinct verses.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #4,179
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 4,179 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 3 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Exodus 1 verse 33%
- Numbers 1 verse 33%
- Lamentations 1 verse 33%
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 3 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 67%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 1 verse · 33%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Bitter 2×
- American Standard Version: Bitter 1×, Bitter herbs 1×, Bitterness 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Bitter herbs 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Bitter herbs 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H4844 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H4844 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H4844 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H4844 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Senses in BDB
The 1 sense BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- bitter thing, bitter herb, bitterness
Word origin
[ מָרֹר ] n.m. bitter thing, bitter herb
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from מרר (mârar) (H4843) — to be bitter.
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
מָרַר
- (b. h.)
- 1. to drip;
- 2. (cmp. אֶרֶס) to be bitter.—V. מוֹר, מַר, מָרוֹר &c.
- to make bitter; to afflict. Pes. X, 5 מרור על שום שמֵרְרוּ המצרים וכ׳ we eat bitter herbs in memory of the Egyptians embittering the lives of our fathers in Egypt. Cant. R. to I, 13 (play on מֹר, ib.) אברהם מְמָרֵר עצמו וכ׳ Abraham afflicted himself and plagued himself with sufferings; ib. to III, 6; a. e.
- same. Gen. R. s. 98 (play on וימררהו, Gen. XLIX, 23) שה׳ לאחיו who made his brothers suffer; שהֵמֵירוּ לו אחיו whom his brothers made suffer; שה׳ לאדונתו who made his mistress suffer; שהֵמֵירָה לו אדונתו (v. Matt. K.) whom his mistress made suffer. Sabb. 88ᵇ (play on צ̇ר̇ר המ̇ר̇, Cant. I, 13) אע"פ שמיצ̇ר̇ ומֵימַ֗ר̇ לי וכ׳ although my Beloved decrees anguish and suffering for me; a. e. e.g. Genesis 49:23
- to become sticky and bitter from handling myrrh. Cant. R. to I, 13 כל … ידיו מִתְמָרְרוֹת (Matt. K. מִתְמוֹרְר׳, Hithpol.) whoever plucks it (myrrh), gets his hands sticky (and bitter). Num. R. s. 13 (play on מוֹרִי, Cant. V, 1) נִתְמָרְרוּ בגלות וכ׳ they became bitter (affected with sin) in captivity, and were sweetened (atoned for their sins) by martyrdom. e.g. Song of Solomon 5:1
- , Nithpalp. נִתְמַרְמֵר to get excited (in battle); to be enraged. Pesik. R. s. 29-30-30 (ed. Fr., p. 140ᵃ) מיד היה מִתְמַרְמֵר וכ׳ at once he became enraged and kicked it (the missile) &c. Ib. נתמ׳ לצאת he was excited in rushing out.
מְרַר
- same, to be bitter; to grieve, mourn. Perf. מַר, imperf. יֵימַר, יֵמַר. Targ. Is. XXIV, 9. Targ. I Sam. XXX, 6; a. fr.—Targ. Zech. XII, 10 ויֵימְרוּן, v. infra.
- to embitter, aggrieve. Targ. Ruth I, 13 תְמָרְרוּן (ed. Amst. תִמְרְ׳). Targ. Y. I Deut. XXXII, 32 מְמַרְרִין (some ed. מְמַרְרַן; Y. II מַרְרַן).
- 1. same. Targ. Ruth I, 20 (not same. Targ. Ruth I, 20 (not אֲמַרִ׳). Targ. Ex. I, 14; a. e.
- 2. to arrange mourning. Targ. Zech. XII, 10 ויימרון … כמא דמַמְרִין וכ׳ they shall arrange mourning for him, as is arranged for &c. (v. infra).—[אָמְרָרוּ, v. Ithpa.]
- to aggrieve. Targ. Prov. XVII, 25. Targ. Y. I Gen. XLIX, 23 ממרירו, read: מַרְמִירוּ; (Y. II אֲמָרוּ, read: אַמָּ׳ Af.).
- 1. to be enraged, fight. Targ. O. Gen. l. c. (Var. אָמְרָרוּ, v. Berl. Targ. O. II, p. 18; oth. ed. אַמְרָרוּ Af.).
- 2. to mourn. Targ. Zech. l. c. Var. (v. Lag. Proph. I, p. XLII).
מֶרֶר
- (preced. wds.)
- 1. bitterness; trouble; במ׳ bitterly. Esth. R. to III, 9 (ref. to Is. XXXIII, 7) וכל צבא … בוכים במ׳ all the hosts on high weep bitterly. e.g. Isaiah 33:7
- 2. sin. Cant. R. to V, 5 (play on מור עבר, ib.) עבר על מְרָרִי he passed over (pardoned) my sin.—Pl. מְרָרִים. Ib. מ׳ דגזר כורש וכ׳ troubles,—when Cyrus decreed and said &c. Ib. מ׳ שאמרתי לעגל וכ׳ sins,—when I said of the calf, these are thy gods &c.
מְרָר
- , מֶרֶר, מְרָרָא ch. same,
- 1. trouble. Snh. 19ᵃ אגב מְרָרֵיה in his trouble (excitement of mourning).—במ׳ bitterly. Targ. Esth. VI, 1; a. fr.
- 2. curse. Targ. O. Num. V, 24; 27, v. מְרִירוּ.
- 3. bitter herb.—Pl. מְרָרִין. Targ. O. Ex. XII, 8; a. e.; v. מְרוֹרָא.
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 3 distinct written forms H4844 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| בַ/מְּרוֹרִ֖ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Lamentations 3:15 | 1 |
| וּ/מְרֹרִ֖ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Numbers 9:11 | 1 |
| מְרֹרִ֖ים | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Exodus 12:8 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H4844, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Shares the same root
- ממרר mamrôr H4472 bitterness
- מר mar H4751 bitter
- מר mar H4752 drop
- מר môr H4753 myrrh
- מרה môrâh H4786 bitterness
- מרירות mᵉrîyrûwth H4814 bitterness
- מרירי mᵉrîyrîy H4815 bitter
- מררה mᵉrêrâh H4845 gall
- מררה mᵉrôrâh H4846 poison
- תמרור tamrûwr H8563 bitterness
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 13 — not the complete family. 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 3 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 3 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
