Bible dictionaries

Marah

What Bible dictionaries say about “Marah”, one article after the other.

Easton’s Bible Dictionary & Webster’s 1828 Dictionary

Marah - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

Bitterness, a fountain at the sixth station of the Israelites (Ex. 15:23, 24; Num. 33:8) whose waters were so bitter that they could not drink them. On this account they murmured against Moses, who, under divine direction, cast into the fountain "a certain tree" which took away its bitterness, so that the people drank of it. This was probably the Ain Hawarah, where there are still several springs of water that are very "bitter," distant some 47 miles from Ayun Mousa.

Matthew George Easton, Easton’s Bible Dictionary; Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)

The article in Easton + Webster 1828

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE 1915)

ma'-ra, mar'-a (marah, "bitter"): The first camp of the Israelites after the passage of the Red Sea (Ex 15:23; Nu 33:8 f). The name is derived from the bitterness of the brackish water. Moses cast a tree into the waters which were thus made sweet (Ex 15:23).

See WANDERINGS OF ISRAEL.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia — James Orr, general editor and contributors; CrossWire SWORD module ISBE 2.2

The article in ISBE 1915

Smith’s Bible Dictionary

(bitterness), a place which lay in the wilderness of Shur or Etham, three days journey distant, (Exodus 15:23; Numbers 33:8) from the place at which the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, and where was a spring of bitter water, sweetened subsequently by the casting in of a tree which "the Lord showed" to Moses. Howarah , distant 16 1/2 hours (47 miles) from Ayoun Mousa , the Israelites first encampment, has been by many identified with it, apparently because it is the bitterest water in the neighborhood.

William Smith; revised by F. N. Peloubet and M. A. Peloubet; CrossWire SWORD module Smith 1.3

The article in Smith