Ep. 8 | The Design of the Desert (Part 1)
Text: Exodus 3:1
Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
KEEP IN MIND: Over 70% of this book takes place in the MIDBAR/Wilderness. Indeed, this is the setting, the background, the backdrop of God’s great story of delivering His people from bondage…so you have permission to get excited!
PORTRAIT of the Wilderness:
DESOLATE
DANGEROUS
TALMON (scholar) in “The Desert Motif”: This midbar wilderness is the scene of utter cruelty, beast against beast and man against man. It is perilous to enter the vast tracts, which are traversable by only a few paths or byways, often barely recognizable. However, due to its remoteness from settled land, and due to its terrifying desolation, the “wilderness” becomes the refuge of outlaws and fugitives, who may prefer an off-chance of survival in exceedingly adverse circumstances, to the calamities which are certainly to befall them from the hands of their pursuers.
DISORIENTING
DISPICABLE
PURPOSE of the Wilderness:
“Because the place is demanding, it builds character; because it is destructive, it builds interdependence; because it's isolating; it builds community.” (Bruce Feiler in Walking the Bible)
Desert Motif: “As northern European children tell stories about forests and snows, so Middle Eastern children know stories about the desert, about travel and danger, about jeopardy and heroism. Stories of camels and oases and mystery. The desert still strikes a deep chord with every Middle Easterner — Jew, Muslim, and Christian. From Abraham to Paul, from Muhammad to Saladin, from Aladdin to Lawrence of Arabia, the desert wilderness shapes their identities.” (Gary Burge from The Bible and the Land)
PHYSICALLY, the MIDBAR surrounding the Dead Sea is the LOWEST physical spot in the world.
The MIDBAR can be seen as a parable of hopelessness, but that is NOT the case.
To understand the PURPOSE of the Wilderness:
(a) ETYMOLOGY of MIDBAR:
CONSTRUCTION of MIDBAR
CONNECTIONS to MIDBAR
(b) EARS in the Midbar:
Here, God would model a people that followed Him. A people of the EARS and not of the EYES.
(c) EDUCATION of the MIDBAR
