Page 29 - Advanced 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.

God created mankind with a special gift called free-will. God desires willing obedience. He did
not create two robots when He created Adam and Eve. He created beings in His own image
with the capacity to love and care for others. He made them with emotions and a spiritual
desire to have fellowship with Him voluntarily.

That’s what God desires of all mankind. To walk with them and have fellowship with them. The
problem is that mankind in general refuses God’s invitation to walk in obedience to Him. Our nature to
sin has been inbred in each one of us to resist letting others have their way. We want what we want-
and are self-sufficient in our own abilities and strength.
After departing Egypt and seeing God do amazing miracles to lead them out of bondage and to protect
them on their journey, Israel arrived at Kadesh Barnea, the entrance into the promised land. After
spying out the land, 10 returned with a bad report: “We cannot attack those people; they are stronger
than we are…All the people we saw were of great size … We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes “
(Numbers 13: 31-33). Moses’s response is that the people failed to trust in God and refused obedience
because of their lack of trust. As a result of their disbelief, Israel wandered in a barren wilderness for 40
years until the entire generation that left Egypt passed on. Let’s find out about their journey…

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.

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

28