Marah
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(bitterness) (Exod 15:23) — one of the camps of the Israelites in the wilderness, lying three days’ journey from the place where they crossed the Red Sea. “They came to Marah,” says the sacred writer, “and could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter.” Moses cast into it the tree shown him by the Lord, and the water became sweet. At the present day this locality is identified on the road from Ayun Musa to Sinai, at the mineral spring of Hawwarah, with its unpleasant, bitter-salty water, which even the Bedouins themselves do not use for drinking. In the book of the prophet Baruch (3:28[?]) Marah is understood to mean the barren land and city of Meran, in Arabia.