Page 22 - Biblical Backgrounds student textbook

Study Section 4: The Wilderness wanderings as event and conceptual
background
(Exodus 13-40, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy)

4.1 Connect.

The journey to the promised land could have taken as little as 11 days. The wilderness
wandering ended up lasting 40 years. What happened? The Jews left Egypt crossed the Sinai
Peninsula. Many changes in direction physical and spiritual direction happened as a result of
the events that occurred during this trip. Moses led them out of Egypt. Joshua led them into
the promised land. They left being willing to worship idols like the idols of Egypt, they arrived
having been taught to worship God alone. The wilderness wandering lives in Jewish culture as both an
event and as a fundamental conceptual foundation for approaching God and their future. Much like the
exodus, the wilderness wandering has served as a conceptual foundation within Judaism for years. It
shaped how they, and by extension much of the early church, perceived their relationship with God. In
this section we will examine the backgrounds of the actual wilderness wanderings. Then we will examine
the conceptual background that developed as a result of remembering the event.
4.2 Objectives.

1. Students should be able to describe the journey and the location covered in the wilderness
wandering.

2. Students should able to describe the government structure that existed during the wilderness
wandering.

3. Students should be able to describe the Jewish religious practices that developed in the wilderness
wandering.

4. Students should be able to explain how the social and economic culture worked during the wilderness
wandering.
5. Students should be able to identify examples of the conceptual foundation of the wilderness
wandering in the New Testament.

4.3 The wilderness wandering as event and conceptual foundation.

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There were likely between two to two and a half million people Israelites that left Egypt.
According to the author of Hebrews, these people travelled “by faith” (Heb. 11:29). The people
of God, then, ultimately trusted God to provide for them. Vos further highlights that the people
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had been living for 400 years in permanent villages. In light of this, the people were not
prepared in any meaningful sense for this journey. It was an act of trust to pack up quickly and
leave everything they had ever known for the land God had promised to His people. Starting from the

43 Voss, Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Manners and Customs, 83.
44 Ibid., 83.

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