Dictionaries :: Desert

Desert:

(1.) Heb. midbar, "pasture-ground;" an open tract for pasturage; a common (Joe 2:22). The "backside of the desert" (Exd 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 "wildernes," and is used of the country lying between Egypt and Palestine (Gen 21:14,21; Exd 4:27; 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; 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; 50:2; Jer 4:11). Such, also, is the meaning of the word "wilderness" in Mat 3:3; 15:33; Luk 15:4.

(2.) The translation of the Hebrew Aribah', "an arid tract" (Isa 35:1,6; 40:3; 41:19; 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 34:1,8), "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; 106:14; Isa 43:19, 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; 23:28), the most terrible of all the deserts with which the Israelites were acquainted. It is called "the desert" in Exd 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" (32:15, midbar). It is a symbol of temptation, solitude, and persecution (Isa 27:10, midbar; 33:9, arabah).

Desert:

dez'-ert midhbar, chorbah, yeshimon, ‘arabhah, tsiyah, tohu; eremos, eremia: Midhbar, the commonest word for "desert," more often rendered "wilderness," is perhaps from the root dabhar, in the sense of "to drive," i.e. a place for driving or pasturing flocks. Yeshimon is from yasham, "to be empty", chorbah (compare Arabic kharib, "to lie waste"; khirbah, "a ruin"; kharab, "devastation"), from charabh "to be dry"; compare also ‘arabh, "to be dry," and ‘arabhah, "a desert" or "the Arabah" (see CHAMPAIGN). For ‘erets tsiyah (Ps 63:1; Isa 41:18), "a dry land," compare tsiyim, "wild beasts of the desert" (Isa 13:21, etc.). Tohu, variously rendered "without form" (Ge 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 tah, "to go astray" at-Tih, "the desert of the wandering." In the New Testament we find eremos and eremia: "The child (John).... was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel" (Lu 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-Nufud, 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 Chijaz 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 Ps 65:11,12: " 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-midhbar) usually signifies the desert of the wandering, or the northern part of the Sinaitic Peninsula. Compare Ex 3:1 King James Version: "MOSES.... led theflock (of Jethro) to the backside of the desert"; Ex 5:3 King James Version: "Let us go.... three days' journey into the desert"; Ex 19:2 King James Version: "They.... were come to the desert of Sinai"; Ex 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 (Ge 21:14), West of Judah (Jud 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 Badiyet-ush-Sham (1Ki 19:15), etc. Midhbar yam, "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 midhbar 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.

Written by Alfred Ely Day

Desert: An Arid Region Having Only Sparse Vegetation

Lev 16:22; Deu 8:15; Jer 2:2, 6; 17:6

Desert: Figurative

Isa 35:1

Desert:

Not a stretch of sand, an utterly barren waste, but a wild, uninhabited region. The words rendered in the Authorized Version by "desert," when used in the historical books denote definite localities.

(1.) ARABAH. This word means that very depressed and enclosed region- the deepest and the hottest chasm in the world- the sunken valley north and south of the Dead Sea, but more particularly the former. SEE [ARABAH]. Arabah in the sense of the Jordan valley is translated by the word "desert" only in Ezekiel 47:8.

(2.) MIDBAR. This word, which our translators have most frequently rendered by "desert," is accurately "the pasture ground." It is most frequently used for those tracts of waste land which lie beyond the cultivated ground in the immediate neighborhood of the towns and villages of Palestine, and which are a very familiar feature to the traveler in that country (Exodus 3:1; 6:3; 19:2).

(3.) CHARBAH appears to have the force of dryness, and thence of desolation. It is rendered "desert" in Psalm 102:6; Isaiah 48:21; Ezek 13:4. The term commonly employed for it in the Authorized Version is "waste places" or "desolation."

(4.) JESHIMON, with the definite article, apparently denotes the waste tracts on both sides of the Dead Sea. In all these cases it is treated as a proper name in the Authorized Version. Without the article it occurs in a few passages of poetry in the following of which it is rendered; "desert:" (Psalm 78:40; 106:14; Isaiah 43:19-20).