marah

Marah is a term with multiple meanings across languages and traditions. It can refer to a place in the Hebrew Bible, a common word in Indonesian and Malay, and occasionally to a personal name in various cultures. The different uses are not connected beyond phonetic similarity in many cases.

In the biblical context, Marah is the name of a location where the Israelites met bitter waters after crossing the Red Sea. According to the narrative in Exodus 15:23–25, the waters were undrinkable until Moses threw a piece of wood into the spring, after which the waters became drinkable. The exact geographic site of Marah is not known with certainty; scholars have proposed several locations along the Sinai Peninsula or near the Gulf of Suez.

In Indonesian and Malay, marah is the everyday word for anger or the state of being angry. As a verb or adjective, it describes emotional arousal or action related to anger and is not a proper noun.

Marah is also used as a given name in some cultures, often drawing on its Hebrew-origin meaning related to bitterness. In such usage, the name may be interpreted symbolically, sometimes associated with endurance or depth of feeling, though interpretations vary by culture and language.

In summary, Marah most commonly refers to a biblical place associated with bitter waters, while in contemporary Southeast Asian languages it denotes anger, and it also appears as a personal name in some contexts.