Desert

From BibleEncyclopedia.Net

(1.) Heb. midbar, “pasture-ground;” an open tract for pasturage; a common (Joe_2:22). The “backside of the desert” (Exo_3:1) is the west of the desert, the region behind a man, as the east is the region in front. The same Hebrew word is rendered “wilderness,” and is used of the country lying between Egypt and Palestine (Gen_21:14, Gen_21:21; Exo_4:27; Exo_19:2; Jos_1:4), the wilderness of the wanderings. It was a grazing tract, where the flocks and herds of the Israelites found pasturage during the whole of their journey to the Promised Land.

The same Hebrew word is used also to denote the wilderness of Arabia, which in winter and early spring supplies good pasturage to the flocks of the nomad tribes than roam over it (1Ki_9:18). The wilderness of Judah is the mountainous region along the western shore of the Dead Sea, where David fed his father's flocks (1Sa_17:28; 1Sa_26:2). Thus in both of these instances the word denotes a country without settled inhabitants and without streams of water, but having good pasturage for cattle; a country of wandering tribes, as distinguished from that of a settled people (Isa_35:1; Isa_50:2; Jer_4:11). Such, also is the meaning of the word “wilderness” in Mat_3:3; Mat_15:33; Luk_15:4.

(2.) The translation of the Hebrew Aribah', “an arid tract” (Isa_35:1, Isa_35:6; Isa_40:3; Isa_41:19; Isa_51:3, etc.). The name Arabah is specially applied to the deep valley of the Jordan (the Ghor of the Arabs), which extends from the lake of Tiberias to the Elanitic gulf. While midbar denotes properly a pastoral region, arabah denotes a wilderness. It is also translated “plains;” as “the plains of Jericho” (Jos_5:10; 2Ki_25:5), “the plains of Moab” (Num_22:1; Deu_34:1, Deu_34:8), “the plains of the wilderness” (2Sa_17:16).

(3.) In the Revised Version of Num_21:20 the Hebrew word jeshimon is properly rendered “desert,” meaning the waste tracts on both shores of the Dead Sea. This word is also rendered “desert” in Psa_78:40; Psa_106:14; Isa_43:19, Isa_43:20. It denotes a greater extent of uncultivated country than the other words so rendered. It is especially applied to the desert of the peninsula of Arabia (Num_21:20; Num_23:28), the most terrible of all the deserts with which the Israelites were acquainted. It is called “the desert” in Exo_23:31; Deu_11:24. (See Jeshimon.)

(4.) A dry place; hence a desolation (Psa_9:6), desolate (Lev_26:34); the rendering of the Hebrew word horbah'. It is rendered “desert” only in Psa_102:6, Isa_48:21, and Eze_13:4, where it means the wilderness of Sinai.

(5.) This word is the symbol of the Jewish church when they had forsaken God (Isa_40:3). Nations destitute of the knowledge of God are called a “wilderness” (Isa_32:15, midbar). It is a symbol of temptation, solitude, and persecution (Isa_27:10, midbar; Isa_33:9, arabah).

dez´ẽrt מדבּר, midhbār, חרבּה, ḥorbāh, ישׁמון, yeshīmōn, ערבה, ‛ărābhāh, ציּה, cīyāh, תּהוּ, tōhū; ἔρημος, érēmos, ἐρημία, erēmía):

Midhbār, the commonest word for “desert,” more often rendered “wilderness,” is perhaps from the root dābhar, in the sense of “to drive,” i.e. a place for driving or pasturing flocks. Yeshīmōn is from yāsham, “to be empty”, ḥorbāh (compare Arabic kharib, “to lie waste”; khirbah, “a ruin”; kharāb, “devastation”), from ḥārabh “to be dry”; compare also ‛ārabh, “to be dry,” and ‛ărābhāh, “a desert” or “the Arabah” (see Champaign). For 'erec cīyāh (Psa_63:1; Isa_41:18), “a dry land,” compare cīyīm, “wild beasts of the desert” (Isa_13:21, etc.). Ṭōhū, variously rendered “without form” (Gen_1:2 the King James Version), “empty space,” the King James Version “empty place” (Job_26:7), “waste,” the King James Version “nothing” (Job_6:18), “confusion,” the Revised Version, margin, “wasteness” (Isa_24:10 the English Revised Version), may be compared with Arabic tāh, “to go astray” at-Tih, “the desert of the wandering.” In the New Testament we find erēmos and erēmiǎ: “The child (John) ... was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel” (Luk_1:80); “Our fathers did eat manna in the desert” (Joh_6:31 the King James Version).

The desert as known to the Israelites was not a waste of sand, as those are apt to imagine who have in mind the pictures of the Sahara. Great expanses of sand, it is true, are found in Arabia, but the nearest one, an-Nufūd, was several days' journey distant from the farthest southeast reached by the Israelites in their wanderings. Most of the desert of Sinai and of Palestine is land that needs only water to make it fruitful. east of the Jordan, the line between “the desert” and “the sown” lies about along the line of the Ḥijāz railway. To the West there is barely enough water to support the crops of wheat; to the East there is too little. Near the line of demarcation, the yield of wheat depends strictly upon the rainfall. A few inches more or less of rain in the year determines whether the grain can reach maturity or not. The latent fertility of the desert lands is demonstrated by the season of scant rains, when they become carpeted with herbage and flowers. It is marvelous, too, how the camels, sheep and goats, even in the dry season, will find something to crop where the traveler sees nothing but absolute barrenness. The long wandering of the Israelites in “the desert” was made possible by the existence of food for their flocks and herds. Compare Psa_65:11, Psa_65:12 :

“Thou crownest the year with thy goodness;

And thy paths drop fatness.

They drop upon the pastures of the Wilderness.

And the hills are girded with joy”;

and also Joe_2:22 : “The pastures of the wilderness do spring.”

“The desert” or “the wilderness” (ha-midhbār) usually signifies the desert of the wandering, or the northern part of the Sinaitic Peninsula. Compare Exo_3:1 King James Version: “MOSES ... led the flock (of Jethro) to the backside of the desert”; Exo_5:3 King James Version: “Let us go ... Three days' journey into the desert”; Exo_19:2 King James Version: “They ... were come to the desert of Sinai”; Exo_23:31 King James Version: “I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river” (Euphrates). Other uncultivated or pasture regions are known as Wilderness of Beersheba (Gen_21:14), West of Judah (Jdg_1:16), West of En-gedi (1Sa_24:1), West of Gibeon (2Sa_2:24), West of Maon (1Sa_23:24), West of Damascus; compare Arabic Bādiyet-ush-Shām (1Ki_19:15), etc. Midhbar yām, “the wilderness of the sea” (Isa_21:1), may perhaps be that part of Arabia bordering upon the Persian Gulf.

Aside from the towns and fields, practically all the land was midhbār or “desert,” for this term included mountain, plain and valley. The terms, “desert of En-gedi,” “desert of Maon,” etc., do not indicate circumscribed areas, but are applied in a general way to the lands about these places. To obtain water, the shepherds with their flocks traverse long distances to the wells, springs or streams, usually arranging to reach the water about the middle of the day and rest about it for an hour or so, taking shelter from the sun in the shadows of the rocks, perhaps under some overhanging ledge.