Who/what is Marah in the Bible?

One of the early stations of the Israelites, so called because the waters there were bitter, but which were made sweet by casting in a tree. Ex. 15:23; Num. 33:8-9. It is typical of the Christian's acceptance of death (Rom. 6:11; John 6:53, etc.), in order to live unto God. It is the love of Christ, expressed in His going into death to make a way out for us, that sweetens the bitterness.

Halting probably at times by the way, but not encamping, they arrived at length at Marah, their first encampment east of the sea (Num. 33:8). Water they found. But disappointment awaited them — the water was bitter; they could not drink of it. Three days without water, and then water too bitter to drink! In what an evil case they seemed to be. Bitter was the water they had reached — Marah, i.e., bitter, they called it. Marah it is still, if the modern name, Huwara, represents the spot. What should be done? Who could alter the character of the water, bitter as it was because of the strata from which it came? The people murmured against Moses. But he was not responsible for the nature of the soil, nor for the character of the water. Had he misled them? That could not be, for the pillar of cloud was with them. They murmured. Moses cried to God. God instructed him in the emergency. Near by was a tree, which, if cast into the waters, they would become sweet. What the tree was is unknown. It was evidently a miraculous effect. God was providing for His people, and He here met the need.

After the three days water was found, but it was bitter and undrinkable. So the name Marah was given to it. This is the third time that the adjective "bitter" has occurred in this narrative. First the Egyptians made the lives of the Israelites bitter with hard bondage. This is recorded in chapter 1:14. Then in chapter 12:8, we read of "bitter herbs" with which the Passover lamb was to be eaten. Now they find bitter water in the wilderness. In this type is enforced the bitterness of sin. It enslaves into bitter bondage. If we appropriate the sacrifice of the Lamb of God it is as those who have to realize inwardly the bitterness of the judgment of death that it entails. In the world, now turned for us into a wilderness, bitterness still meets us. Water normally would speak of refreshment and life. But the world's water becomes bitterness to us, for its sweetest joys are polluted by sin.

After their song Israel turned from the land of their captivity, and "went out into," or towards, "the Wilderness of Shur." The long wall of rock which rises up over the flatter district near the sea gives the name of the Wilderness of the Wall (Shur) to the desert towards which they turned. We are supposing that they took their journey from near the point marked in our map that is, close by Migdol. There can be no doubt that on leaving the neighbourhood of the store city, Pithom, they brought with them not only supplies of food but of water also. For months previously it had been known that they were to serve Jehovah in the wilderness, (Ex. 5:1, 7) and that young and old, sons and daughters, flocks and herds, (Ex. 10:9) would form their company, and more, a "three days' journey into the wilderness" (Ex. 8:27) had been specified; hence to suppose Israel undertaking this journey without supplies of water that would last them some days is impossible. As they had ample time for preparation there is no reason whatever for assuming that they did not make the necessary arrangements. Pithom, as has been already observed, was a store city, and from it, as a base, expeditions started across the wilderness to the mines in the Sinai district, and elsewhere. Israel's way was to the Mount of God. Hence they journeyed southwards "towards" the Wilderness of Shur; they did not bend their steps the more direct way towards their land of promise.

"And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water." Egypt had ever found them water, and in its river, water of noted sweetness; but their supplies brought from that land were lessening, and, after their three days of toil, Marah, or Bitterness, was reached, with its brackish, unpalatable pools. The fact of a three days' journey into the wilderness and finding no water, and then the brackish pools, is attested by travellers who follow Israel's track; but God is not merely recording an incident in their way from bonds to rest, He is also communicating spiritual instruction. Israel was bound to a fruitful land, and the first great lessons learned on their way thither were the absence of refreshment natural to the wilderness over which they travelled, and the disappointing nature of the water frequently found there.

"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."

Lying low by its shore, the saltness of the sea rendered, and still renders, the waters brackish. It is the sea itself, let us notice, that makes the bitterness of Marah. Now, if the sea is death, as we have seen, we shall easily understand how this gives the realization of the wilderness as the place of death, which not only provides nothing for our thirst, but what is there is provocative of thirst. Just so is the wilderness to us as a redeemed people. It is a place where that death, which in Christ we have passed through, as Israel passed through the sea, meets us and presents itself to our taste.

Naturally we shrink from it. The people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? Marah is in itself never pleasant. The Christian's spirit with regard to all the sorrow and sin that is in the world can never be apathy, never indifference. We are never placed in a position in which not to feel what a scene we are passing

“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. 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.”

“ And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter ” (Exodus 15:23).

"And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter" (Exodus 15:23).

In the latter part of the chapter there is another topic. After the triumph the children of Israel are led by Moses into the wilderness where there was no water. A most astonishing thing it might seem at first sight, that after having been thus blessed, the first thing the people find is a wilderness where there is no water; and that, when they do come to water, it is so bitter that they cannot drink it. "Therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?" But the resource was at hand. "He cried to Jehovah; and Jehovah showed him a tree which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There he made for them a statute and an ordinance and there he proved them." God was showing that the privileges and power of redemption in Christ are one thing, and the necessary practice that follows from redemption another. But we are now in the place where all this is put in fact to the test; and the only power to sweeten what is bitter is by bringing in Christ. Else we find either no water whatever, or the water brackish and undrinkable. Thus we have to make death and resurrection good in our practice, learning the reality of the wilderness and the utter want of all power of refreshment in the place and circumstances through which we are passing. We owe everything to Christ.

One day, two days, three days are spent in the wilderness, and no water is found. Finally arriving at Marah, they “could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter.” The people murmur against Moses and he cries to the Lord. “And the LORD showed him a tree; and when he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet.”