🔼The name Meronothite: Summary
- Meaning
- Rebel, One Of The Rebellion
- One Who Instigates Cheering
- Etymology
- From the noun מרון (meron), rebellion, from the verbs מרה (mara), to be rebellious, and מרר (marar), to be strong or bitter.
- From a causative participle מרן (meren), of the verb רנן (ranan), to produce a ringing cry.
🔼The name Meronothite in the Bible
The term Meronothite is an adjective or ethnonym and describes either someone from a place called Meronoth or Meronah, or someone endowed with a quality described by a noun from some verb מרן (maran) or perhaps רנן (ranan) or something like that. There are two Meronothites mentioned in the Bible:
🔼Etymology of the name Meronothite
It's entirely unclear what a Meronothite might have been. The most obvious explanation is that it describes someone from a town called Meronoth or Meronah, but no such town is mentioned in the Bible. There is a Shimron-meron mentioned among the many Canaanite kings that Joshua defeated (Joshua 12:20), whose name without the -meron part is the same as Samaria, which implies that the -meron part points to some sub-region that is otherwise not mentioned. However, this -meron is spelled מראון (mer'on), while our ethnonym would derive from something like מרנה (marana). This name in turn may derive from something called מרן (maron), which brings to mind the מרר (marar) cluster of words:
מרר
The verb מרר (marar) means to be strong or bitter and can be used to describe tastes and smells, and hard or difficult situations. Most definitively, this word occurs in the test of adultery (Numbers 5:18-27), where a suspected woman is made to drink "bitter waters". If she was innocent, her husband's suspicions would be lifted, and she would conceive. This obviously ties into the nativity story.
Adjectives מר (mar) and מרירי (meriri) mean bitter. Nouns מרור (maror) and מרורה (merora) refer to any bitter thing, the former specifically to a certain bitter herb, and the latter to gall or poison.
Noun מררה (merera) also means gal. Nouns מרה (morra), מרה (mora), מרירות (merirut), ממר (memer), ממרור (mamror) and תמרור (tamrur) mean bitterness. The latter noun is spelled identical to the noun תמרור (tamrur), meaning marker or sign post, from the root תמר (tamar), meaning to be stiff or erect.
And speaking of such, the nouns מר (mor) and מור (mor) mean myrrh, a bitter and fragrant spice that was originally used to mark the tabernacle, but which came to be used to proclaim, olfactorily, the consummation of marriage. Hence, despite its links to words that mostly describe hardship, myrrh oil was known as the "oil of joy."
Verb מרה (mara) means to be contentious or rebellious, particularly against God. Noun מרי (meri) means rebellion.
The verb מור (mor) means to change. Perhaps the connection between the previous is coincidental but perhaps these words are indeed linked, as change is often reaction to bitterness or opposition. The noun תמורה (temura) means exchange.
Marcus Jastrow's exhaustive Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Bavli, Talmud Yerushalmi and Midrashic Literature (1971, Judaica Treasury) lists a small cluster of extra-Biblical names derived from the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew verb מרה (mara), to be contentious or rebellious (see above), namely Meron (מרון) and Beth-maron (בית מרון) in the Galilee, which are probably the same as the modern day cities of Meron and Meiron. Associated ethnonyms are מרונאה (merona'a) and מרוני (meroni), which are convincingly similar to our name Meronothite (מרנתי).
The name Meron (מרון) is identical to the Aramaic noun מרון (meron), meaning rebellion. The first chapter of the tractate Rosh Hashanah makes mention of בני מרון (bene meron), literally "sons of the rebellion" but simply meaning "rebels", which refers to all creatures, as all are judged on Rosh Hashanah, in accordance with Psalm 33:14-15: "He looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth; He who fashions the hearts of them all; He who understands all their works."
This noun מרון (meron) in turn is a synonym of אימרייא (i'merai) and אימרנא (i'merana'), both meaning rebellion, which in turn look like they are associated with אימרתא (i'mmarta'), ewe — and while in English "sheep" signify a compliant and following nature, to people who actually knew sheep, they were creatures that wandered off a lot and made a lot of noise. Our noun אימרתא (i'mmarta'), ewe, was also spelled אמר ('imar) and several comparable variations, which bring to mind the Hebrew verb אמר (amar), to talk, and hence the ethnonym Amorite. That's not without significance, as through Ezekiel, YHWH says about Jerusalem: "Your origin and your birth are from the land of the Canaanite, your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite" (Ezekiel 16:3).
It appears that at least in Aramaic, sheep were known as talkers, the reason of which surely does not exceed the imagination of a modern reader. Perhaps comparably, in Hebrew, the word for bee, namely דברה (deborah), derives from the verb דבר (dabar), to speak. But more so, sheep were known as rebels, separatists and secessionists, and this reputation is clearly the basis of the familiar story of the wayward sheep who was rescued by its virtuous owner (Matthew 18:12-13). Rebellion in the Bible is generally frowned upon, but in some cases a sheep must first be lost in order to be found again. Or as God commands: "You shall not follow the masses in doing evil, nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after a multitude in order to pervert justice" (Exodus 23:2).
Alternatively but not too far removed from the previous, our ethnonym Meronothite may also be constructed from an otherwise unused Hiphil active participle מרן (meren), of the verb רנן (ranan), meaning to produce a ringing cry:
רנן
The cheerful verb רנן (ranan) means to produce a ringing cry, either out of joyous cheer, distress or to introduce a declaration of some sort. Nouns רן (ron), רנה (rinna) and רננה (renana) all describe ringing cries. Plural noun רננים (renanim) refers to birds that deliver piercing cries.
ארן
The unused verb ארן ('aran) appears to have meant to be nimble, agile, or even high up or aroused, and in cognate languages it yields a noun for a kind of wild mountain goat. The indeed Biblical noun ארן ('oren) means fir or cedar.
The noun ארון ('aron) is the word that is usually translated with Ark (that is the Ark of the Covenant, not the Ark of Noah). But this noun is also used for the coffin in which Joseph's bones were repatriated, or the chest in the temple in which money was collected.
It's not clear whether these boxes were known from the wood they were made of (namely the sprightly fir or cedar), caused society to be nimble, agile or elevated, or perhaps because these boxes were designed to exist within a collective verbal expression from bystanders (after the verb רנן, ranan).
🔼Meronothite meaning
None of the sources we frequent offers an explanation of our name Meronothite but here at Abarim Publications we are reasonably confident that it refers to a virtuous rebellion, or righteous stubbornness. Taken from the verb מרה (mara), our name means Rebel or more precise: One Of The Rebellion. Derived from the Hiphil active participle מרן (meren), it means One Who Causes Cheering. The latter interpretation would make our ethnonym Meronothite rather similar to the name Boanerges, which also speaks of the thunderous roaring of a battle cry, and likewise associates to herd animals: βους (bous), cattle.