The Wilderness · The Symbolism of Scripture
The Wilderness
The wilderness is the one place in Scripture that keeps stating its own purpose out loud — and of the reasons given for it, only one is punishment. The rest are proving, teaching, feeding, and in Hosea something closer to courtship.
What It Stands For
not empty land: open land, with nothing to hide behind
The Hebrew midbar (H4057) is glossed in the lexicon first as a pasture: open field, whither cattle are driven, and only then as a desert. That is a useful correction to the picture most readers carry. Israel is not wandering a sand sea; it is on open grazing country, with flocks, where there is nowhere to hide and nothing stored up.
“The wilderness is where God speaks”: what is true in that, and what is nota word study, kept at its proper weight
The claim rests on a real feature of the language: midbar (wilderness) and dabar (to speak) share the same three consonants, and the identical form midbar does mean speech once in the Hebrew Bible — at Song of Solomon 4:3, “thy speech is comely”.
What is not true is the further step, that the word for wilderness therefore means“place of speaking”. Strong’s own entry derives midbar from that verb in the sense of driving— as cattle are driven — which is why the lexicon’s first gloss is pasture. Shared consonants in Hebrew are common and do not settle a meaning, and no biblical writer draws the connection.
What Scripture does say is better than the wordplay and does not need it: in Hosea 2:14 God brings her into the wilderness and speaks to her heart — stated, not inferred.
What It Is For, in Its Own Words
seven passages, seven stated reasons
| What happens there | The reason the passage gives | Stated at |
|---|---|---|
| Forty years of being led | “To humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart.” | Deuteronomy 8:2 |
| Bread rained from heaven | “That I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.” | Exodus 16:4 |
| Hunger first, then manna | “That he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only.” | Deuteronomy 8:3 |
| Manna their fathers knew not | “That he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end.” | Deuteronomy 8:16 |
| Forty years of wandering | “And bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.” | Numbers 14:33 |
| Forty days, driven by the Spirit | “To be tempted of the devil.” | Matthew 4:1 |
| Allured, and brought there | “And speak comfortably unto her.” | Hosea 2:14 |
Remember that these forty years the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments.Moses gives the whole forty years one purpose clause, and it ends in the heart.
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain down bread from heaven for you. Each day the people are to go out and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test whether or not they will follow My instructions.The daily ration is the test. Not the hunger: the RATION.
That I may prove them - The trial consisted in the restriction to the supply of their daily wants.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1847Presbyterian
Exodus 16:4
God's bounty leaves room for man's duty; it did so even when manna was rained: they must not eat till they have gathered.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Nonconformist
Exodus 16:4
Barnes has the sharpest sentence on the page. The trial was not starvation; it was a day’s supply at a time, which is a harder thing to live with than most sermons on manna admit. Adam Clarke adds the plain physical observation that keeps the scene from being a nature story:
I will rain bread - Therefore this substance was not a production of the desert: nor was the dew that was the instrument of producing it common there, else they must have had this bread for a month before.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Exodus 16:4
He humbled you, and in your hunger He gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had known, so that you might understand that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.The order is the argument: He suffered thee to hunger, AND THEN fed thee: 'that he might make thee know'.
But by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord - literally, every outgoing of the mouth of the Lord.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1847Presbyterian
Deuteronomy 8:3
"It is not by bread alone that the just man lives, but by the Word of the Lord," who is the true bread, the bread of heaven.
Clement of Alexandria· The Instructor, Book 3, 198Alexandrian, second century
Deuteronomy 8:3
The One Place It Is a Sentence
Numbers 14, and the mercy inside it
Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness until the last of your bodies lies in the wilderness.A year for a day. The sentence is measured out against the forty days the spies spent looking.
The honest reading keeps this row in the table. There is a wilderness in Scripture that is judgment, and Numbers says so without softening. But even here two things are worth noticing. John Gill points out that the Hebrew verb behind “wander” is not the word for aimless drifting:
And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years,.... Or "feed" (b), as shepherds, who go from place to place, and seek fresh pasture for their sheep
John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament, 1763Particular Baptist
Numbers 14:33
The authority Gill leans on there is Abraham ibn Ezra, the twelfth-century Spanish Jewish commentator, whose grammatical notes were standard reading for later Christian Hebraists: the verb is the shepherding word, so the picture is a flock being pastured rather than a crowd lost in sand.
And Matthew Henry passes on a piece of information most readers never hear about this chapter: where the ninetieth Psalm is thought to have come from:
It should seem that upon occasion of this sentence Moses penned the ninetieth Psalm , which is very apposite to the present state of Israel, and wherein they are taught to pray that since this sentence could not be reversed it might be sanctified, and they might learn to apply their hearts unto wisdom.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Nonconformist
Numbers 14:33-34
Henry is careful, “it should seem”, and so is this page: the psalm’s title attributes it to Moses, and the link to this particular sentence is an old inference rather than a statement of Scripture.
Where Jesus Is Taken
and the verse He answers with
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.The chapter break hides the timing: this happens immediately after the voice from heaven.
At once the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness,Mark's verb is ekballei: the word used for casting out. Nothing gentle about the going.
Then - After this glorious evidence of his Father's love, he was completely armed for the combat. Thus after the clearest light and the strongest consolation, let us expect the sharpest temptations.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755Wesleyan
Matthew 4:1
The Spirit driveth - The word driveth does not mean that he was compelled forcibly against his will to go there, but that he was inclined to go there by the Spirit, or was led there. The Spirit of God, for important purposes, caused him to go.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1847Presbyterian
Mark 1:12
Jerome and Chrysostom both press the point that the going is deliberate, and Chrysostom names the weapon the setting supplies — not only hunger, but being by yourself.
There is no doubt that it was the Holy Spirit. It follows: In order to be tempted by the devil. However, he is led not unwillingly or captivated, but by his own will to fight.
Jerome· Commentary on Matthew, 398Latin, fourth century
Matthew 4:1
You see how the Spirit led him, not into a city or public arena, but into a wilderness. In this desolate place, the Spirit extended the devil an occasion to test him, not only by hunger, but also by loneliness, for it is there most especially that the devil assails us, when he sees us left alone and by ourselves.
John Chrysostom· Homilies on Matthew 13.1, 390Greek, fourth century
Mark 1:12
And then the detail that ties the two wildernesses together. Hungry after forty days, Jesus answers the first temptation by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3— the verse Moses wrote about the manna, about Israel’s forty years, in that wilderness. Where Israel was proved and failed, He is proved with the same text in His mouth.
Where It Points
a road through it, and a woman allured into it
A voice of one calling: “Prepare the way for the LORD in the wilderness; make a straight highway for our God in the desert.Comfort begins with roadworks. Somebody is coming, and the route runs through the waste.
The voice of him that crieth - Lowth and Noyes render this, A voice crieth, and annex the phrase in the wilderness to the latter part of the sentence: A voice crieth, In the wilderness prepare ye the way of Yahweh.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1847Presbyterian
Isaiah 40:3
she ordered the mountains and precipices to be levelled, raised causeways in the plain country, and at a great expense made the ways passable.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Isaiah 40:3
Barnes is worth reading slowly: the Hebrew will carry either a voice cries in the wilderness or a voice cries: in the wilderness prepare the way. The Gospels quote it the first way and apply it to John; the parallel line in Isaiah leans the second way. Clarke supplies what such a road actually meant in the ancient world: a queen levelling mountains so that a monarch could travel.
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her and lead her to the wilderness, and speak to her tenderly.'I will allure her': the verb belongs to courtship. This is the sentence that changes the symbol.
So obstinate is she that God has to "allure her," that is, so to temper judgment with unlooked-for grace as to win her to His ways.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Hosea 2:14
I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her - After inflicting many judgments upon her, I will restore her again. I will deal with her as a very affectionate husband would do to an unfaithful wife. Instead of making her a public example, he takes her in private, talks to and reasons with her
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible, 1832Wesleyan
Hosea 2:14
Clarke sees why the wilderness is chosen for it: He takes her somewhere private. Not a courtroom, not a public example: the empty place, where there is no audience and nothing else to want. The last appearance of the symbol keeps that sense: in Revelation the wilderness is a shelter, and the food is waiting.
And the woman fled into the wilderness, where God had prepared a place for her to be nourished for 1,260 days.'Where she hath a place prepared of God': prepared beforehand, and stocked.
Where she has a place prepared by God. Be to me, he says, a God of protection, and a place of refuge to save me.
Bede the Venerable· Commentary on Revelation, 735Anglo-Saxon, eighth century
Revelation 12:6
What Scripture says outright
- Deuteronomy 8:2
The reason for the forty years is given in the verse: to humble, to prove, and to know what was in the heart.
- Hosea 2:14
God says He will bring her into the wilderness and speak comfortably unto her — the tenderness is stated, not inferred.
- Matthew 4:1
The Spirit leads Him up to be tempted. Matthew states the purpose of the trip.
What readers have heard in it
Readings and popular claims, named as such.
- Song of Solomon 4:3
That the Hebrew word for wilderness means“place of speaking”. The consonants are shared and the form means “speech” here, but the lexicon derives midbar from driving, and no biblical writer makes the link.
- Numbers 14:33
That Moses wrote Psalm 90 in response to this sentence. Matthew Henry says “it should seem”, and the psalm’s title does name Moses; the occasion is an inference.
- Revelation 12:6
Every identification of the woman’s wilderness with a named region or period of church history. Commentators have mapped it onto their own centuries for fifteen hundred years; the text gives a duration and a provision, not a place.
The Voices
with the work named
Albert Barnes earns his place three times here: he names what the manna test actually was, he gives the literal Hebrew of Deuteronomy 8:3, and he lays out the real punctuation question in Isaiah 40:3 without pretending it is settled. Adam Clarke does the physical and historical work: the dew was not native, the road was a royal engineering project, the wilderness was where a husband took his wife privately. Chrysostom names loneliness as the second weapon of the temptation. Wesley states the pattern in one sentence that has outlived him. Clement of Alexandria reads Deuteronomy 8:3 the way the New Testament will.
Where to Go Next
Where the wilderness is the whole scene
What God gave them there
Where the picture goes on
Its neighbours in the index
The Symbolism of Scripture gathers every picture the Bible thinks in. This one sits with: