This adjective appears in Deuteronomy 32:24, describing the weapons God will use against rebellious Israel: "bitter destruction" (or "bitter plague"). The Song of Moses catalogs covenant curses—hunger, plague, wild beasts, and sword. "Bitter destruction" captures the lethal, grievous nature of divine judgment. The term applies the sensory experience of bitter taste to catastrophic events, suggesting something harsh, intolerable, and deadly. While the root commonly describes bitter herbs or water, its extension to destruction emphasizes how calamity assaults the soul the way bitterness assaults the palate—unbearable and intense.