|
|
|
Etymology •
& Meaning •
Hebrew •
Greek •
Bible •
Names •
|
|
|
Meaning and etymology of the name Mara
|
|
| | |
Mara 
The name Mara occurs only once in the Bible. It's the name that Naomi gives herself after returning to Bethlehem from Moab, where her husband Elkanah and two sons Mahlon and Chilion have died. Chilion's widow Orpah stayed behind but Mahlon's widow comes with Naomi. In Bethlehem she meets and marries Boaz, and they become the parents of Obed, the grandparents of Jesse, the father of king David.
Noami says, "Call me Mara because Shaddai has dealt bitterly with me" (Ruth 2:20), and the word for bitter comes from the verb  (marar), meaning to be bitter. This verb comes with no less than twelve derivatives, all pretty much meaning the same thing, from the adjective
 (mar), meaning bitter
to the noun  (morah), meaning bitterness, and from the adjective  (meriri), also meaning bitter, to the noun  (merirut), meaning bitterness. Hebrews love to lament, and it shows through their many ways to say bitter.
However, it should be noted with some stress, that for the Hebrew audience the idea of bitterness has as much to do with grief as with strength. A dish with a bitter taste is said to have a "strong" taste. HAW Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament reports that the Ugaritic, Arabic and Aramaic cognates of this root mean to bless, strengthen or commend. And since these languages are most often very similar to Hebrew, any Hebrew audience would surely be aware of this secondary meaning. HAW lists four texts in which this verb may be more appropriately be translated with strength/strengthen than with bitterness/being bitter: Exodus 1:14, Judges 18:25, Ecclesiastes 7:26 and Ezekiel 314.
When Noami calls herself Mara, she is not simply complaining that she's been dealt a lousy hand; she's saying that the grief that Shaddai has visited upon her has made her strong.
For a meaning of the name Mara, Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names reads Bitterness. NOBS Study Bible Name List has Bitter.
Related names are Maria, Martha, Mary, Merari, Miriam and Ithamar.
|
|
|
•Look for baby names
•Augment your Hebrew language study
•Deepen your knowledge of the Bible
•Enrich your cruise to or travel holiday in Israel
|
|
