Genesis 22:2 ff tells the story of the Akeda, the "binding" and non-sacrifice of Yitschak (Isaac), which took place on Mount Mor-Yah.
2 Chronicles 3:1 names it as the hill in Yeru-Shala'im on which Shelomoh (Solomon) built the Temple, including the rock on which the Akeda took place and previously the threshing-floor of Ornah (sometimes called Araunah) of the Bene Yevus (Jebusites). The rock is now the centrepiece of the Moslem Shrine of Omar, also known as "The Dome of the Rock".
The root is thought by some scholars to be Mar'eh-Yah (מראה יה), which they then translate as "chosen by God"; an obvious give-away that they are scholars of faith seeking to sustain the removal of the goddess from Judaism; for it is clearly not Mar'eh-Yah but what is written, without an Aleph (א), Mor-Yah, and even if it were Mar'eh-Yah, then it should be translated as "chosen by Yah", it being Yah the moon-goddess who is referred to here.
The original pronunciation may have been Mar-Yah, for the word refers to "the bitter tears of Yah". Take off the Yah and look at the Mar that remains, and it becomes much more interesting, especially on study of the Jesus story. Mar (מר) = "bitterness", and the word recurs in the names of Mir-Yam – Miriam, the sister of Mosheh as well as the sister of Lazarus - both Martha and Mary find their names grown from this root.
The waters of Merivah (מריבה), where Mosheh committed his fatal sin, do not in fact share the same root, the MAR at the beginning simply being an indicator of the Pi'el form, and the root RIV, which means "contention"; but the same idea of bitter waters is nonetheless inside the story, and the incident takes place immediately after the burial of Mir-Yam.
The word Maror (מרור), on the other hand, being the bitter herbs of the Egyptian slavery which are symbolically eaten at Passover, does come from the same root. The bitterness on this occasion, at least in the Egyptian original, is the salt tears of Eshet (Isis), the mother-goddess weeping for the death of her child (for which cf Rachel in Ramah, in Jeremiah 31:15) ; and in Yeru-Shala'im, much more specifically, at the shrine of Ornah (Arawna/Araunah) which David purchased as the site of the Temple, i.e. the previous shrine that stood on the sacred rock: the tears of Inanna, mourning the dead Tammuz, as Ezekiel describes in chapter 8 of his book.
Not surprisingly, given the link between the serpent and the moon-goddess, the poisonous gall of the viper is known in Yehudit as Mererah (מררה).
Genesis 46:11, Exodus 6:16 and Numbers 26:57 have a son of Levi named Merari (מררי), who also takes his name from the same root.
Copyright © 2019 David Prashker
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