Israel in the Wilderness

Israel in the Wilderness

The Apostle Paul makes a direct comparison between Israel’s experience in the Wilderness of Sinai and that of believers making their way through the spiritually parched and barren landscape of the present age (1 Cor 10:1-14). Paul says that this experience is a prophetic warning against succumbing to sins, with idolatry heading the list (vss. 7,14). The same comparison is made for the same reason in Hebrews 3:5-4:11. A spiritual version of Israel’s original desert experience, in which believers are tested for obedience, corresponds to the prophecy of Ezekiel 20:35-38 about a new period for Israel in the wilderness to separate the faithless from the faithful. The message in all cases is that only those who persevere in the truth will reach the resting place, that is, the eternal kingdom (Ezek 20:38; Heb 3:19; 4:11). No such wilderness wandering and testing accompanied the political-military movements that established independent Jewish nations in the Middle East in 66 CE, 132 CE, and most recently in 1948. Jesus indicated that God’s special favor is no longer tied to a physical place/nation, but to a condition of renewal by God’s Spirit (John 4:21-24).