TO QUARREL, to bring a case — a legal-flavoured word: a rib is a dispute, and in the prophets it is God's LAWSUIT against his people. The noun merivah is the quarrel itself, and it becomes a place-name twice over. ⚠ Exodus 17:7 (already on these pages) names a Massah-and-Meribah at the first rock; Numbers 20:13 names a second Meribah at the second, which is why later books call this one Meribath-Kadesh to tell them apart. Three versions translate the name rather than keep it — the Douay-Rheims 'the Water of contradiction', RV60 and RV 1909 «las aguas de la rencilla» — and the Living Bible keeps it and glosses it wrongly as 'Rebel Waters', which is marah, a different root that this chapter does also happen to use. → first discussed at Num 20:13