midbar · wilderness

What it means

midbar (מִדְבָּר) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “wilderness”.

In the Bible it is not only sand; it is dry, untilled land, where flocks can be led but people cannot live by sowing.

How to say it

Approximate pronunciation. Vowels sound as in Spanish (a as in father, e as in bed, i as in machine, o as in note, u as in rule); the syllable in bold is stressed. The voice is your device's.

Its senses in the Bible

1. Dry, unfarmed land where flocks graze.
2. The mouth as the organ of speech; hence, the way of speaking.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

Word study

Wilderness: open, dry, untilled land, where a flock can be led but nothing sown. BDB defines it as a pasture, open field where cattle are driven, and by implication a desert.

• The wilderness where flocks are pastured Exodus 3:1
• Israel's journey through the wilderness Exodus 5:1Numbers 14:33Deuteronomy 8:2
• A place of flight Genesis 21:14
• “In the wilderness clear the way” Isaiah 40:3

Historical and cultural background

Moses “led the flock beyond the wilderness” to Horeb (Exodus 3:1): the wilderness was grazing land.

How we translate it

“Wilderness” 269 times, “desert” once. It is translated “wilderness” consistently; יְשִׁימוֹן, another word, is “wasteland”.

How it is translated

The words this translation uses for it, most frequent first.

• wilderness ×269
• desert ×1
• speech ×1

Related words

Words of the same family, by Strong’s numbering.

Where it appears

• Genesis×7
• Exodus×27
• Leviticus×4
• Numbers×48
• Deuteronomy×19
• Joshua×15
• Judges×9
• 1 Samuel×18
• 2 Samuel×6
• 1 Kings×4
• 2 Kings×1
• 1 Chronicles×4
• 2 Chronicles×7
• Nehemiah×2
• Job×3
• Psalms×19
• Proverbs×1
• Song of Songs×3
• Isaiah×21
• Jeremiah×21
• Lamentations×3
• Ezekiel×15
• Hosea×5
• Joel×5
• Amos×2
• Zephaniah×1
• Malachi×1

• Genesis 14:6

  and the Horites in their mountains of Seir, as far as El-paran, which is by the wilderness.

• Genesis 16:7

  The angel of YHWH found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur.

• Genesis 21:14

  Abraham rose early in the morning, took bread and a skin of water, and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, and also the child, and sent her away. She went and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.

• Genesis 21:20

  Elohim was with the boy, and he grew up and lived in the wilderness and became an archer.

• Genesis 21:21

  He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took for him a wife from the land of Egypt.

• Genesis 36:24

  These are the sons of Zibeon: Aiah and Anah. This is the Anah who found the springs in the wilderness while he was pasturing the donkeys of Zibeon his father.

• Genesis 37:22

  Reuben said to them, “Do not shed blood; throw him into this cistern that is in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him,” so that he might deliver him from their hands to bring him back to his father.

• Exodus 3:1

  Moses was shepherding the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock beyond the wilderness and came to the mountain of Elohim, to Horeb.

• Exodus 3:18

  They will listen to your voice; and you shall come, you and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt and say to him, ‘YHWH, the Elohim of the Hebrews, has met with us. And now, please let us go a journey of three days into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to YHWH our Elohim.’

• Exodus 4:27

  YHWH said to Aaron, “Go to meet Moses in the wilderness.” So he went and met him at the mountain of Elohim and kissed him.

• Exodus 5:1

  Afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says YHWH, the Elohim of Israel: ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast for me in the wilderness.’”

• Exodus 5:3

  They said, “The Elohim of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go a journey of three days into the wilderness and sacrifice to YHWH our Elohim, or he will fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.”

• Exodus 7:16

  And you shall say to him, ‘YHWH, the Elohim of the Hebrews, has sent me to you, saying, “Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness.” But look, you have not listened until now.

• Exodus 8:27

  We will go a journey of three days into the wilderness and sacrifice to YHWH our Elohim as he tells us.”

• Exodus 8:28

  Pharaoh said, “I will let you go, that you may sacrifice to YHWH your Elohim in the wilderness; only you must not go very far away. Pray for me.”

• Exodus 13:18

  So Elohim led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Sea of Reeds. And the sons of Israel went up in battle formation from the land of Egypt.

• Exodus 13:20

  They set out from Succoth and camped at Etham, on the edge of the wilderness.

• Exodus 14:3

  Pharaoh will say of the sons of Israel, ‘They are wandering aimlessly in the land; the wilderness has closed in on them.’

• Exodus 14:11

  They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us to die in the wilderness? What is this you have done to us, bringing us out of Egypt?

• Exodus 14:12

  Is not this the word that we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, ‘Leave us alone and let us serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”

• Exodus 15:22

  Then Moses led Israel onward from the Sea of Reeds, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water.

• Exodus 16:1

  They set out from Elim, and all the community of the sons of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt.

• Exodus 16:2

  And all the community of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and against Aaron in the wilderness.

• Exodus 16:3

  The sons of Israel said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of YHWH in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full! But you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

• Exodus 16:10

  As Aaron spoke to all the community of the sons of Israel, they turned toward the wilderness, and look, the glory of YHWH appeared in the cloud.

• Exodus 16:14

  When the layer of dew had gone up, look, on the surface of the wilderness there was something fine, flaky, fine as frost on the ground.

• Exodus 16:32

  Moses said, “This is the thing that YHWH has commanded: ‘A full omer of it is to be kept throughout your generations, so that they may see the bread that I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’ ”

• Exodus 17:1

  All the community of the sons of Israel set out from the wilderness of Sin, by their stages, according to the command of YHWH, and camped at Rephidim; but there was no water for the people to drink.

• Exodus 18:5

  Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, came with his sons and his wife to Moses in the wilderness where he was camped, at the mountain of Elohim.

• Exodus 19:1

  In the third month after the going out of the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt, on that day they came to the wilderness of Sinai.

• Exodus 19:2

  They had set out from Rephidim, and came to the wilderness of Sinai, and they camped in the wilderness; Israel camped there in front of the mountain.

• Exodus 23:31

  I will set your border from the Sea of Reeds to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River, for I will give into your hand the inhabitants of the land, and you shall drive them out from before you.

• Leviticus 7:38

  which YHWH commanded Moses on Mount Sinai, on the day he commanded the sons of Israel to present their offerings to YHWH, in the wilderness of Sinai.

• Leviticus 16:10

  But the goat on which the lot for Azazel fell shall be set alive before YHWH to make expiation over it, to send it away to Azazel into the wilderness.

• Leviticus 16:21

  And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions, for all their sins; and he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is ready.

• Leviticus 16:22

  And the goat shall carry on itself all their iniquities to a land cut off; and he shall let the goat go in the wilderness.

• Numbers 1:1

  And YHWH spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they came out of the land of Egypt, saying,

• Numbers 1:19

  as YHWH had commanded Moses. So he counted them in the wilderness of Sinai.

• Numbers 3:4

  But Nadab and Abihu died before YHWH when they offered strange fire before YHWH in the wilderness of Sinai, and they had no sons; so Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests in the presence of Aaron their father.

• Numbers 3:14

  And YHWH spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, saying,

And 231 more times.