Mercha (, also spelled Merkha and other variant English spellings) is a

cantillation Cantillation is the ritual chanting of prayers and responses. It often specifically refers to Jewish Hebrew cantillation. Cantillation sometimes refers to diacritics used in texts that are to be chanted in liturgy. Cantillation includes: * Chant ...

mark commonly found in the

Torah The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...

Haftarah The ''haftara'' or (in Ashkenazi Jews, Ashkenazic pronunciation) ''haftorah'' (alt. ''haftarah, haphtara'', ) "parting," "taking leave" (plural form: ''haftarot'' or ''haftoros''), is a series of selections from the books of ''Nevi'im'' ("Pr ...

, and other books that are chanted. Mercha is found in several trope groups, though the melody varies from one use to the next. It is the beginning of the Etnachta group, can be found either once or twice preceding the

Sof passuk The ''sof passuk'' (, ''end of verse'', also spelled sof pasuq and other variant English spellings. It is preceded by the silluq in the last word of the verse) is the cantillation mark that occurs on the last word of every verse, or '' passuk' ...

, or can occasionally precede the Pashta in the Katon group or a Tevir. Mercha appears in the Torah 9117 times—the second most of any trope sounds. Only Tipcha occurs more often. The Hebrew word translates into English as ''mercha''.

Total occurrences

Melody

In Etnachta group

In Sof Passuk group

References