מָרֹר

# Maror: Bitterness in Ancient Hebrew The Hebrew word *maror* (מָרֹר) denotes bitterness and appears only three times in the biblical text. This limited occurrence suggests it was a specialized term rather than an everyday word in ancient Hebrew vocabulary. The word carries a literal meaning associated with taste or bitter substances, though its precise applications across those three instances would determine whether it was used metaphorically for emotional or spiritual states. Given its rarity, *maror* likely held particular weight when used in biblical narratives. The three occurrences represent all extant examples in the Hebrew scriptures, making each instance potentially significant for understanding how ancient Hebrew speakers conceptualized bitterness. Whether employed to describe an actual bitter substance, a bitter experience, or an emotional state of bitterness cannot be determined from the lexical data alone, but the term's specificity suggests it was chosen deliberately when expressing ideas related to bitterness in the Hebrew tradition.