StrongerBible

marah

מַרְאָה

HebrewH4759“vision, visions, ...”

Appears 12 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 46:2Exo 38:8Num 12:61Sa 3:15Ezk 1:1Ezk 8:3Ezk 40:2Ezk 43:3Dan 10:7 (2×)Dan 10:8Dan 10:16
Word studymar-AHnoun

What marah means

1

a vision: the sight God gives a prophet when he reveals himself, and the state the prophet is in while it lasts

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This word names the seeing, not the message. When Numbers 12:6 explains how God normally reaches a prophet, it sets a vision beside a dream: both are channels God uses, and neither is the content of what he says. Daniel keeps the same focus. There the word points back again and again to the overwhelming sight itself, the thing that left him with no strength in him.

Two shades run through the ten places the word is used this way:

  • a single vision given at a moment, which a prophet can then report or be too afraid to report
  • the plural "visions," naming the condition a seer is in while God is showing him something

Ezekiel turns that second shade into a set phrase, "visions of God," and it works almost like a place he is standing: in visions of God he is lifted out of Babylon and set down at a gate in Jerusalem, or on a very high mountain. Genesis 46:2 does something similar with "visions of the night," the setting in which God calls Jacob by name.

Two nearby words divide up this ground. The word most often translated "vision" in the prophets (חָזוֹן) can slide from the vision itself to the message it delivers, so it ends up as the heading of whole prophetic books, which this word never becomes. Its closest relative (מַרְאֶה), the ordinary word for the look of a thing, stays mostly with plain appearance and only sometimes rises to a revealed sight.

Nuances

1aa vision granted at a particular moment: the sight God shows one person, which can then be told or withheld
Num 12:61Sa 3:15Dan 10:7 (2×)Dan 10:8Dan 10:16
1bvisions as the state a seer is carried along in: the condition God puts a person into in order to show him something
Gen 46:2Ezk 1:1Ezk 8:3Ezk 40:2Ezk 43:3
2

a mirror: a disc of polished bronze in which a person sees her own reflection

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintyStrong

Only Exodus 38:8 uses the word this way, and it does so almost in passing. The bronze basin for the tabernacle was made from the mirrors of the women who served at the entrance of the tent of meeting. An ancient mirror was not glass but a hand-sized disc of bronze, polished until it threw back an image, which is exactly why the metal could be collected and melted down into something else.

The two meanings share a starting point, the ordinary verb "to see," but they do not share a sense: one is a thing shown to you, the other a thing you look at yourself in. English needs two different words, and the ancient translators already took it as mirrors, both in Greek and in Latin.

Exo 38:8

What scholars say about marah

The standard lexica derive both senses from the root רָאָה "to see" yet list them separately: BDB and HALOT give מַרְאָה I "vision" and מַרְאָה II "mirror" (Exod 38:8 only), and DCH follows the same split. Within the revelatory sense HALOT distinguishes the singular (Num 12:6; 1 Sam 3:15; Dan 10:7, 8, 16) from the plural מַרְאוֹת, which carries the fixed Ezekielian formula מַרְאוֹת אֱלֹהִים (Ezek 1:1; 8:3; 40:2; 43:3) alongside מַרְאֹת הַלַּיְלָה at Gen 46:2. Zimmerli and Block both read מַרְאוֹת אֱלֹהִים in Ezekiel as a technical designation for the visionary state in which the prophet is transported rather than for the content of what he sees, which is the basis of the two-sense division adopted here. TDOT's article on רָאָה (Fuhs) places מַרְאָה with מַרְאֶה inside the root's revelatory vocabulary and distinguishes both from חָזוֹן, which extends from the vision to the oracle it yields. The mirror sense at Exod 38:8 is supported by the ancient versions (LXX κάτοπτρον, Vulgate speculum) and by the well-attested use of polished bronze discs as mirrors in the region; Propp discusses the verse and the dedication of the women's mirrors to the bronze basin. Collins notes that בַּמַּרְאָה at Dan 10:16 is frequently construed causally, "because of the vision." The text of Ezek 43:3 is widely regarded as disturbed, with the Greek diverging from the Hebrew, and the plural מַרְאוֹת there sits awkwardly among four occurrences of מַרְאֶה in the same verse.

Sources

  • HALOT, s.v. מַרְאָהlexicon
  • BDB, s.v. מַרְאָהlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. מַרְאָהlexicon
  • TDOT, s.v. רָאָה (H. F. Fuhs)theological-dictionary
  • TWOT, s.v. רָאָהtheological-dictionary
  • Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1 (Hermeneia), on Ezekiel 1:1commentary
  • Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 1-24 (NICOT), on Ezekiel 1:1commentary
  • John J. Collins, Daniel (Hermeneia), on Daniel 10:16commentary
  • William H. C. Propp, Exodus 19-40 (Anchor Yale Bible), on Exodus 38:8commentary
  • Jacob Milgrom, Numbers (JPS Torah Commentary), on Numbers 12:6-8commentary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of מַרְאָה

f s absolute

מַּרְאָה

Num 12:6, 1Sa 3:15, Dan 10:7, Dan 10:7, Dan 10:8, Dan 10:16

f p construct

מַרְאוֹת, מַרְאֹת

Ezk 1:1, Ezk 8:3, Ezk 40:2, Gen 46:2, Exo 38:8

f p absolute

מַרְאוֹת

Ezk 43:3