Maroth

Maroth appears once in Scripture in Micah's celebrated chapter of place-name puns mourning the doomed Shephelah towns: "For the inhabitant of Maroth waited carefully for good: but evil came down from the Lord unto the gate of Jerusalem" (Micah 1:12). The Hebrew name "Maroth" punningly resembles the word for "bitterness" — the village hoped for "good" (towb) but received "evil" (ra). Micah's sweeping lament walks village by village through the western Judean foothills (Gath, Shaphir, Zaanan, Beth-ezel, Maroth, Lachish), turning each name into a wordplay that doubles as judgment. The exact site of Maroth remains unidentified, somewhere near Lachish.