Marah

Marah (meaning bitterness) was the first stopping place of the Israelites after crossing the Sea of Reeds, where they found the water too bitter to drink (Exodus 15:23–26). Three days into the wilderness of Shur without water, the people grumbled against Moses, who cried to the LORD, who showed him a tree; when Moses threw it into the water, the water became sweet. At Marah God gave Israel its first formal statute and ordinance: if they would listen to his voice and do what was right in his eyes, observing his commandments and statutes, he would not bring on them the diseases he had brought on Egypt — "for I am the LORD who heals you."

The miracle at Marah is thus both a practical provision and a test of faith, establishing the pattern of Israel's complaint-and-divine-provision that recurs throughout the wilderness narratives. The healing of bitter water also anticipates the prophetic use of water imagery: Elisha's healing of Jericho's spring (2 Kings 2:19–22) and Ezekiel's vision of the healing river from the temple (Ezekiel 47) echo this foundational event. Marah's location is generally placed at Ain Hawarah in the northern Sinai.