Word study

Bitter

5 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “bitter”. English often uses one word where Hebrew or Greek has several, each with its own shade of meaning. Under each word are verses where it is translated this way; choose the word itself for its full study: every verse, how else it is translated, the forms it takes and what the dictionaries say.

At a glance

How often each original word is translated “bitter” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • מַר marbitter, bitternesstranslated this way 23 times of its 39 uses · Strong’s H4751Adjective  ·  Translated: bitter 16, bitterness 6, bitterly 3, anguish 2

    Genesis 27:34 When Esau heard his father’s words, he let out a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me too, O my father!”

    Exodus 15:23 And when they came to Marah, they could not drink the water there because it was bitter. (That is why it was named Marah.)

    Full study and all 36 verses →
  • מָרַר mârarbe bittertranslated this way 3 times of its 14 uses · Strong’s H4843Verb  ·  Translated: bitter 2, rage 2

    Exodus 1:14 and made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar, and with all kinds of work in the fields. Every service they imposed was harsh.

    Ruth 1:13 would you wait for them to grow up? Would you refrain from having husbands? No, my daughters, it is much more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the LORD has gone out against me.”

    Full study and all 13 verses →
  • מְרֹר merôrbitter thing, bitter herbtranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H4844Noun  ·  Translated: bitter herbs 2, bitterness 1

    Exodus 12:8 They are to eat the meat that night, roasted over the fire, along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

    Numbers 9:11 Such people are to observe it at twilight on the fourteenth day of the second month. They are to eat the lamb, together with unleavened bread and bitter herbs;

    Full study and all 3 verses →
  • מְרֹרָה merôrâhbitter thing, gall, poisontranslated this way 2 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s H4846Noun  ·  Translated: bitter 1, bitter accusations 1, venom 1, liver 1

    Deuteronomy 32:32 But their vine is from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poisonous; their clusters are bitter.

    Job 13:26 For You record bitter accusations against me and bequeath to me the iniquities of my youth.

    Full study and all 4 verses →
  • תַּמְרוּר tamrûrbitternesstranslated this way 2 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H8563Noun  ·  Translated: bitter 1, great 1, provoked bitter 1

    Jeremiah 6:26 O daughter of my people, dress yourselves in sackcloth and roll in ashes. Mourn with bitter wailing, as you would for an only son, for suddenly the destroyer will come upon us.

    Hosea 12:14 Ephraim has provoked bitter anger, so his Lord will leave his bloodguilt upon him and repay him for his contempt.

    Full study and all 3 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • πικραίνω pikraínōI embittertranslated this way 2 times of its 4 uses · Strong’s G4087Verb  ·  Translated: harsh 1, bitter 1, make 1, turned bitter 1

    Revelation 8:11 The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter like wormwood oil, and many people died from the bitter waters.

    Revelation 10:10 So I took the small scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth. But when I had eaten it, my stomach turned bitter.

    Full study and all 4 verses →
How to study a word well
  1. Start from the verse, not the dictionary. Find which Hebrew or Greek word stands in the verse you are studying. One English word often translates several different original words.
  2. Read every place the word is used. A word means what its writers used it to mean. The list of verses and the count by book show its range, and who uses it most.
  3. Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
  4. Notice the form. A command is not a statement, and a passive verb is something done to the subject. The form in your verse is part of the meaning.
  5. See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
  6. Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
  7. Come back to the verse. Context decides. A word does not carry every one of its meanings into every verse, and where a word came from does not settle what it means in a sentence written centuries later.

Scripture text and translation counts: Berean Standard Bible. Full entry: Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906, public domain), in the digital edition Brown-Driver-Briggs Enhanced by unfoldingWord (Joel Ruark, J. de Joode), based on data by Eliran Wong and Stephen Ku; its additions are used under CC BY 4.0. Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary: Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project, CC BY 4.0. Hebrew-to-English verse numbering: original work of the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible available at https://github.com/openscriptures/morphhb, CC BY 4.0. We reformatted the data, linked the references to this site’s Bible text and left out words in other scripts that the source holds only as images. These are historical reference works; an entry gives its authors’ view, and a word’s meaning in any verse depends on how it is used there.