For the wilderness was a place of hope, of new beginnings.13 It was in the wilderness that Yahweh had met with Israel and made them into his people when they came out of Egypt. That had been the honeymoon period, before the relationship became strained. ‘I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. Israel was holy to Yahweh, the first fruits of his harvest’ (Je. 2:2–3). In the wilderness Israel experienced privation and danger,
Page 57