bit´ẽr, bit´ẽr-nes (מר, mar, or מרה, mārāh = “bitter” (literally or figuratively); also (noun) “bitterness” or (adverb) “bitterly”; “angry,” “chafed,” “discontented,” “heavy” ([Gen 27:34]; [Exo 15:23]; [Num 5:18], [Num 5:19], [Num 5:23], [Num 5:24], [Num 5:27]; [Est 4:1]; [Job 3:20]; [Psa 64:3]; [Pro 5:4]; [Pro 27:7]; [Ecc 7:26]; [Isa 5:20]; [Jer 2:19]; [Jer 4:18]; [Eze 27:31]; [Amo 8:10]; [Hab 1:6]); the derivatives מרר, mārar, מרר, merōr, and מררה, merōrāh, used with the same significance according to the context, are found in [Exo 1:14]; [Exo 12:8]; [Num 9:11]; [Job 13:26]; [Isa 24:9]. The derivatives merı̄ and merı̄rı̄ occur in [Deu 32:24]; [Job 23:2] (margin); and תּמרוּר, tamrūr, is found in [Jer 6:26]; [Jer 31:15]. In the New Testament the verb πικραίνω, pikraı́nō = “to embitter”; the adjective πικρός, pikrós = “bitter,” and the noun πικρία, pikrı́a, “bitterness,” supply the same ideas in [Col 3:19]; [Jas 3:11], [Jas 3:14]; [Rev 8:11]; [Rev 10:9], [Rev 10:10]): It will be noted that the word is employed with three principal spheres of application: (1) The physical sense of taste; (2) a figurative meaning in the objective sense of cruel, biting words; intense misery resulting from forsaking God, from a life of sin and impurity; the misery of servitude; the misfortunes of bereavement; (3) more subjectively, bitter and bitterness describe emotions of sympathy;’ the sorrow of childlessness and of penitence, of disappointment; the feeling of misery and wretchedness, giving rise to the expression “bitter tears”; (4) The ethical sense, characterizing untruth and immorality as the bitter thing in opposition to the sweetness of truth and the gospel; (5) [Num 5:18] the Revised Version (British and American) speaks of “the water of bitterness that causeth the curse.” Here it is employed as a technical term.
