Exodus 15:23 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

When they came to Marah— Moses tells us, in the close of the verse, that the place was called Marah, from the bitterness of the waters there. "In travelling from Sdur, Or Shur," says Dr. Shaw, "towards Mount Sinai, we came into the desert, as it is still called, of Marah, where the Israelites met with the bitter waters of Marah. As this circumstance did not happen till after they had wandered three days in the wilderness, Exodus 15:22 we may probably fix these waters at Corondel, where there is still a small rill, which, unless it be diluted by the dews and rain, still continues to be brackish. Near this place the sea forms itself into a large bay, called Berk el Coronarel, i.e. the lake of Corondel; which is remarkable from a strong current which sets into it from the northward, particularly at the recess of the tide. The Arabs, agreeably to the interpretation of Kolzum, their name for this sea, preserve a tradition, that a numerous host was formerly drowned at this place; occasioned, no doubt, by what is related, ch. Exodus 14:30 that the Israelites saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea-shore; i.e. all along, as we may presume, from Sdur to Colondel; and at Corondel, especially, from the assistance and termination of the current." Several heathen writers agree, that there were bitter waters in the parts where the Israelites were now travelling, which is supposed by many to have been owing to the saline and nitrous particles wherewith the soil thereabout is strongly impregnated.