The idea of time spent in the wilderness is very important in Biblical concepts of life and experience. The Hebrew word is midbar and it means it generally means a deserted place. A desert, a pasture, or even a forest. It is generally translated in the New Testament by the word er?mos which more specifically a desert, but also can be any uninhabited place.
God using Moses delivered Israel from
Egyptian slavery.
Then separated from bondage in Egypt, Israel found herself wandering around in a desert. They were a people of perhaps say two or three million people. (They had about 600,000 men of military age, Ex 12:37, from ages 20 to 60.) Now we are talking about a logistical nightmare. Not counting their livestock, and they were shepherds, and if you figured only two million people, and they only needed two quarts of water per day (a very low figure) to drink and cook, then they would need about a million gallons of water day, every day, at a minimum, and that is not counting food. It is astonishing quantities of supplies that are needed for large populations.
The Israelites, despite the wonders
they had seen in Egypt,
were not a very
trusting group.
But God did care for them, even in desolate places.
“10 He found him in a desert land,
In the waste howling wilderness;
He compassed him about, he cared for him, He kept him as the apple of his eye.
11 As an eagle that stirs up her nest,
That flutters over her young,
He spread abroad his wings, he took them,
He bore them on his feathers.
12 Yahweh alone did lead him,
There was no foreign god with him.”
Deut 32:10-12
God provided food and water in dramatic and powerful ways, and cared for them when no human agency could have.
It was never intended that Israel remain in a desolate wilderness indefinitely.
Yes, their life was to pass through some desolation for while, but only for a short while. They were to receive God’s laws at Mount Sinai, then head toward the land of promise land, send out spies to determine their strategy, and then enter and conquer the land as prophesied.
But there were problems. Ten of the twelve men sent to scout out the land were not convinced that they could conquer the giants of the land. Further, the ten unconvinced men persuaded all of the Israel that the conquest was simply impossible, and that the nation would be destroyed. So Israelites revolted against the Lord and refused to march against Canaan. There was a face off between men and God, and Israel finally saw they were wrong.
However, there was a price to pay. All the men who refused to march against the land, would have to die in the desert before Israel finally took possession of the land The story is told in Numbers chapters 13 and 14.
So the initial short stay in desolate places
turned into 40 years of desolation,
until the 600,000 men died off,
all because of unbelief.
Scriptures are from the World English Bible WEB, a copyright free revision
of the original ASV American Standard Version 1901.