Matthew Henry on Exodus 15:22–end
It should seem, it was with some difficulty that Moses prevailed with Israel to leave that triumphant shore on which they sang the foregoing song. They were so taken up with the sight, or with the song, or with the spoiling of the dead bodies, that they cared not to go forward, but Moses with much ado brought them from the Red Sea into a wilderness. The pleasures of our way to Canaan must not retard our progress, but quicken it, though we have a wilderness before us. Now here we are told,
I. That in the wilderness of Shur they had no water, Exo 15:22. This was a sore trial to the young travellers, and a diminution to their joy; thus God would train them up to difficulties. David, in a dry an…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Exodus 15:23
when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters--Following the general route of all travellers southward, between the sea and the tableland of the Tih ("valley of wandering"), Marah is almost universally believed to be what is now called Howarah, in Wady Amarah, about thirty miles from the place where the Israelites landed on the eastern shore of the Red Sea--a distance quite sufficient for their march of three days. There is no other perennial spring in the intermediate space. The water still retains its ancient character, and has a bad name among the Arabs, who seldom allow their camels to partake of it.
Adam Clarke on Exodus 15:23
Marah - So called from the bitter waters found there. Dr. Shaw conjectures that this place is the same as that now called Corondel, where there is still a small rill which, if not diluted with dews or rain, continues brackish. See his account at the end of Exodus (Exo 40:38 (note)).
John Gill on Exodus 15:23
And when they came to Marah,.... A place in the wilderness, afterwards so called from the quality of the waters found here; wherefore this name is by anticipation:
they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; and they must be very bitter for people in such circumstances, having been without water for three days, not to be able to drink of them: some have thought these to be the bitter fountains Pliny (f) speaks of, somewhere between the Nile and the Red sea, but these were in the desert of Arabia; more probably they were near, and of the same kind with those that Diodorus Siculus (g) makes mention of, who, speaking of the Troglodytes that inhabited near the Red sea, an…
