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BITTER HERBS (merôrîm, Exo_12:8, Num_9:11).—The bitter herbs of the modern Jewish Passover in Palestine are specially lettuce and endive. Other salads, such as parsley, cucumber, chicory, and water-cress, are also commonly eaten, indeed are prime favourites. The author of Lam_3:15, in using the same word merôrîm (tr. [Note: translate or translation.] ‘bitterness’), doubtless had more bitter and less wholesome plants in his mind, perhaps the colocynth or Ecballium elaterium, the wild gourd of 2Ki_4:39. See, further, Passover.
E. W. G. Masterman.