'Wilderness' in the Bible

Early in the morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He put them on her shoulders, gave her the child, and sent her away. So she went wandering aimlessly through the wilderness of Beer Sheba.

God was with the boy as he grew. He lived in the wilderness and became an archer.

He lived in the wilderness of Paran. His mother found a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

These were the sons of Zibeon: Aiah and Anah (who discovered the hot springs in the wilderness as he pastured the donkeys of his father Zibeon).

Reuben continued, "Don't shed blood! Throw him into this cistern that is here in the wilderness, but don't lay a hand on him." (Reuben said this so he could rescue Joseph from them and take him back to his father.)

"The elders will listen to you, and then you and the elders of Israel must go to the king of Egypt and tell him, 'The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. So now, let us go three days' journey into the wilderness, so that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.'

The Lord said to Aaron, "Go to the wilderness to meet Moses. So he went and met him at the mountain of God and greeted him with a kiss.

which the Lord commanded Moses on Mount Sinai on the day he commanded the Israelites to present their offerings to the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai.

but the goat which has been designated by lot for Azazel is to be stood alive before the Lord to make atonement on it by sending it away to Azazel into the wilderness.

Aaron is to lay his two hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the Israelites and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins, and thus he is to put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man standing ready.

The goat is to bear on itself all their iniquities into an inaccessible land, so he is to send the goat away in the wilderness.

Now the Lord spoke to Moses in the tent of meeting in the wilderness of Sinai on the first day of the second month of the second year after the Israelites departed from the land of Egypt. He said:

just as the Lord had commanded Moses. And so he numbered them in the wilderness of Sinai.

Nadab and Abihu died before the Lord when they offered strange fire before the Lord in the wilderness of Sinai, and they had no children. So Eleazar and Ithamar ministered as priests in the presence of Aaron their father.

Then the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai:

The Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt:

And they observed the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight in the wilderness of Sinai; in accordance with all that the Lord had commanded Moses, so the Israelites did.

So the Israelites set out on their journeys from the wilderness of Sinai; and the cloud settled in the wilderness of Paran.

Moses said, "Do not leave us, because you know places for us to camp in the wilderness, and you could be our guide.

After that the people moved from Hazeroth and camped in the wilderness of Paran.

So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran at the command of the Lord. All of them were leaders of the Israelites.

So they went up and investigated the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, at the entrance of Hamath.

They came back to Moses and Aaron and to the whole community of the Israelites in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They reported to the whole community and showed the fruit of the land.

And all the Israelites murmured against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, "If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had perished in this wilderness!

Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to them, he killed them in the wilderness.'

For all the people have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tempted me now these ten times, and have not obeyed me,

(Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites were living in the valleys.) Tomorrow, turn and journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea."

Your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness -- all those of you who were numbered, according to your full number, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me.

But as for you, your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness,

and your children will wander in the wilderness forty years and suffer for your unfaithfulness, until your dead bodies lie finished in the wilderness.

I, the Lord, have said, "I will surely do so to all this evil congregation that has gathered together against me. In this wilderness they will be finished, and there they will die!"'"

When the Israelites were in the wilderness they found a man gathering wood on the Sabbath day.

Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of the land that flows with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness? Now do you want to make yourself a prince over us?

Then the entire community of Israel entered the wilderness of Zin in the first month, and the people stayed in Kadesh. Miriam died and was buried there.

Why have you brought up the Lord's community into this wilderness? So that we and our cattle should die here?

And the people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness, for there is no bread or water, and we detest this worthless food."

Then they traveled on from Oboth and camped at Iye Abarim, in the wilderness that is before Moab, on the eastern side.

From there they moved on and camped on the other side of the Arnon, in the wilderness that extends from the regions of the Amorites, for Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites.

The well which the princes dug, which the leaders of the people opened with their scepters and their staffs." And from the wilderness they traveled to Mattanah;

and from Bamoth to the valley that is in the country of Moab, near the top of Pisgah, which overlooks the wilderness.

But Sihon did not permit Israel to pass through his border; he gathered all his forces together and went out against Israel into the wilderness. When he came to Jahaz, he fought against Israel.

So Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, that looks toward the wilderness.

When Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, he did not go as at the other times to seek for omens, but he set his face toward the wilderness.

But there was not a man among these who had been among those numbered by Moses and Aaron the priest when they numbered the Israelites in the wilderness of Sinai.

For the Lord had said of them, "They will surely die in the wilderness." And there was not left a single man of them, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

"Our father died in the wilderness, although he was not part of the company of those that gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Korah; but he died for his own sin, and he had no sons.

For in the wilderness of Zin when the community rebelled against me, you rebelled against my command to show me as holy before their eyes over the water -- the water of Meribah in Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin."

So the Lord's anger was kindled against the Israelites, and he made them wander in the wilderness for forty years, until all that generation that had done wickedly before the Lord was finished.

For if you turn away from following him, he will once again abandon them in the wilderness, and you will be the reason for their destruction."

They traveled from Succoth, and camped in Etham, which is on the edge of the wilderness.

They traveled from Pi-hahiroth, and passed through the middle of the sea into the wilderness, and went three days' journey in the wilderness of Etham, and camped in Marah.

They traveled from the Red Sea and camped in the wilderness of Zin.

They traveled from the wilderness of Zin and camped in Dophkah.

They traveled from Rephidim and camped in the wilderness of Sinai.

They traveled from Ezion-geber and camped in the wilderness of Zin, which is Kadesh.

your southern border will extend from the wilderness of Zin along the Edomite border, and your southern border will run eastward to the extremity of the Salt Sea,

Then we left Horeb and passed through all that immense, forbidding wilderness that you saw on the way to the Amorite hill country as the Lord our God had commanded us to do, finally arriving at Kadesh Barnea.

Your territory will extend from the wilderness in the south to Lebanon in the north. It will extend all the way to the great River Euphrates in the east (including all of Syria) and all the way to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.

including the hill country, the lowlands, the Arabah, the slopes, the wilderness, and the Negev -- the land of the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites:

So now, look, the Lord has preserved my life, just as he promised, these past forty-five years since the Lord spoke these words to Moses, during which Israel traveled through the wilderness. Now look, I am today eighty-five years old.

The land allotted to the tribe of Judah by its clans reached to the border of Edom, to the Wilderness of Zin in the Negev far to the south.

Your fathers cried out for help to the Lord; he made the area between you and the Egyptians dark, and then drowned them in the sea. You witnessed with your very own eyes what I did in Egypt. You lived in the wilderness for a long time.

They retreated before the Israelites, taking the road to the wilderness. But the battle overtook them as men from the surrounding cities struck them down.

The rest turned and ran toward the wilderness, heading toward the cliff of Rimmon. But the Israelites caught five thousand of them on the main roads. They stayed right on their heels all the way to Gidom and struck down two thousand more.

Six hundred survivors turned and ran away to the wilderness, to the cliff of Rimmon. They stayed there four months.

So Joab and Abishai chased Abner. At sunset they came to the hill of Ammah near Giah on the way to the wilderness of Gibeon.

So Benaiah son of Jehoiada went up and executed Joab; he was buried at his home in the wilderness.

Baalath, Tadmor in the wilderness,

Now the Lord's tabernacle (which Moses had made in the wilderness) and the altar for burnt sacrifices were at that time at the worship center in Gibeon.

Solomon and the entire assembly went to the worship center in Gibeon, for the tent where they met God was located there, which Moses the Lord's servant had made in the wilderness.

He built up Tadmor in the wilderness and all the storage cities he had built in Hamath.

An edict was sent throughout Judah and Jerusalem requiring the people to bring to the Lord the tax that Moses, God's servant, imposed on Israel in the wilderness.

and suddenly a great wind swept across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they died! And I -- only I alone -- escaped to tell you!"

The Lord's shout shakes the wilderness, the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

Look, I will escape to a distant place; I will stay in the wilderness. (Selah)

A psalm of David, written when he was in the Judean wilderness. O God, you are my God! I long for you! My soul thirsts for you, my flesh yearns for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.

The pastures in the wilderness glisten with moisture, and the hills are clothed with joy.

For victory does not come from the east or west, or from the wilderness.

He broke open rocks in the wilderness, and gave them enough water to fill the depths of the sea.

They insulted God, saying, "Is God really able to give us food in the wilderness?

How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness, and insulted him in the desert!

Yet he brought out his people like sheep; he led them through the wilderness like a flock.

He says, "Do not be stubborn like they were at Meribah, like they were that day at Massah in the wilderness,

I am like an owl in the wilderness; I am like a screech owl among the ruins.

In the wilderness they had an insatiable craving for meat; they challenged God in the desert.

They wandered through the wilderness on a desert road; they found no city in which to live.

to the one who led his people through the wilderness, for his loyal love endures,

Let the desert and dry region be happy; let the wilderness rejoice and bloom like a lily!

Then the lame will leap like a deer, the mute tongue will shout for joy; for water will flow in the desert, streams in the wilderness.

A voice cries out, "In the wilderness clear a way for the Lord; construct in the desert a road for our God.

I will make cedars, acacias, myrtles, and olive trees grow in the wilderness; I will make evergreens, firs, and cypresses grow together in the desert.

"Look, I am about to do something new. Now it begins to happen! Do you not recognize it? Yes, I will make a road in the desert and paths in the wilderness.

The wild animals of the desert honor me, the jackals and ostriches, because I put water in the desert and streams in the wilderness, to quench the thirst of my chosen people,

Certainly the Lord will console Zion; he will console all her ruins. He will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the Garden of the Lord. Happiness and joy will be restored to her, thanksgiving and the sound of music.

"Go and declare in the hearing of the people of Jerusalem: 'This is what the Lord says: "I have fond memories of you, how devoted you were to me in your early years. I remember how you loved me like a new bride; you followed me through the wilderness, through a land that had never been planted.

They did not ask: 'Where is the Lord who delivered us out of Egypt, who brought us through the wilderness, through a land of desert sands and rift valleys, through a land of drought and deep darkness, through a land in which no one travels, and where no one lives?'

You are like a wild female donkey brought up in the wilderness. In her lust she sniffs the wind to get the scent of a male. No one can hold her back when she is in heat. None of the males need wear themselves out chasing after her. At mating time she is easy to find.

You people of this generation, listen to what the Lord says. "Have I been like a wilderness to you, Israel? Have I been like a dark and dangerous land to you? Why then do you say, 'We are free to wander. We will not come to you any more?'

I said, "I will weep and mourn for the grasslands on the mountains, I will sing a mournful song for the pastures in the wilderness because they are so scorched no one travels through them. The sound of livestock is no longer heard there. Even the birds in the sky and the wild animals in the fields have fled and are gone."

"'For the Lord says concerning the palace of the king of Judah, "This place looks like a veritable forest of Gilead to me. It is like the wooded heights of Lebanon in my eyes. But I swear that I will make it like a wilderness whose towns have all been deserted.