For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,
Habakkuk 1:6
that bitter and hasty nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth,
to seize dwellings not their own.
God responds to Habakkuk’s complaint about the injustice around him by revealing that he is raising up the Chaldeans/Babylonians to execute justice. He goes on to describe what these invaders are like. The first words, bitter (מַר, mar) and hasty (מָהַר, mahar), form a nice alliteration. What does it mean to describe people as bitter?
A Bitter Taste
The word “bitter” derives from the verb marar (to be bitter or emotionally distraught). Derivations of this word are scattered throughout Scripture. While they used it in similar ways as we do in English, differences pop up, too.
The word can be used literally of taste: “strong drink is bitter (marar) to those who drink it” (Isaiah 24:9). When the people wandered in the wilderness, they arrived at a place named Marah because of the bitter (mar) water (Exodus 15:23-25).
Life can also be described as bitter. After Naomi lost her husband and sons, she bemoans her bitter life (Ruth 1:13). She even changes her name to Mara (Ruth 1:20). When in distress, weeping bitterly is a natural response (like Isaiah 22:4).
However, this word pops up in ways you may not expect. For instance, God told Moses he would send an angel ahead of the nation as they traveled through the wilderness. However, he warned them, “do not rebel (marar) against him” (Exodus 23:20). This is in the causative form, so we could say something like “do not cause bitterness in him” or “do not embitter him”. I picture God here like a father warning his children to behave as he leaves them with a babysitter. “Don’t get on the babysitter’s bad side!”
It is also possible to embitter yourself, becoming enraged (Daniel 8:7, 11:11). Instead of saying, “he was enraged against him”, does saying “he embittered himself towards him” change the flavor any?
A Bitter Soul
One way bitterness manifests is in the phrase “bitter(ness) of soul” (mar nephesh). Job uses it four times: “I will speak in the bitterness of my soul” (Job 10:1, see also Job 3:20, 7:11, and 21:25). Job even describes God as the one “who has made my soul bitter” (Job 27:2).
This is not a fun emotional place to be in. As Hannah prayed for a son, “She was deeply distressed (mar nephesh) and prayed to the LORD and wept bitterly” (1 Samuel 1:10). Ezekiel describes the mourning over the fall of the city of Tyre: “they weep over you in bitterness of soul (mar nephesh), with bitter (mar) mourning” (Ezekiel 27:31).
While David was on the run from Saul, hundreds gathered with him who were “in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul (mar nephesh)” (1 Samuel 22:2). When he was again on the run, this time from his son Absalom, he and his men are described as “enraged (mar nephesh), like a bear robbed of her cubs in the field” (2 Samuel 17:8).
In Judges 18, the group from the tribe of Dan moved north to find a new place to live. On their way, they found a man, Micah, who had a shrine in his home with a priest. They enticed the priest to come with them with Micah’s shrine. When he asked for them back, they replied harshly, “Do not let your voice be heard among us, lest angry fellows (literally “men bitter of soul”) fall upon you, and you lose your life with the lives of your household” (Judges 18:25).
The Bitterness of Passover
Passover begins this coming Saturday at sundown. There are a wide variety of traditions attached to its observance. One key component is the commandment to eat bitter herbs (maror) (Exodus 12:8) because the Egyptians “made their lives bitter (marar) with hard service” (Exodus 1:14). In the same way, after Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians, they lamented, “He has filled me with bitterness (maror)” (Lamentations 3:18).
Peter, after denying Jesus, “went out and wept bitterly” (Matthew 26:75, Luke 22:62). The taste of the bitter herbs was nothing compared to how he felt for letting down his rabbi.
When Jesus came, he hung on the cross, taking on all the bitterness of this world. We remember, “they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly (marar) over him, as one weeps (marar) over a firstborn” (Zechariah 12:10). Like the bitterness of losing an only child, so was the bitterness of losing him.
To Ponder…
Think of a time when your life felt bitter. What was that like? What does it look like today to weep bitterly over the tragedies in our lives and of others?
While you can’t always control when life is made bitter, what would it look like keep from embittering yourself? What would it look like to let go of the bitterness?