WILDERNESS

Definition:

Empty or bare. Either in the sense of desolate and barren (no fruit) or solitary, secluded and alone (no inhabitant).

Scripture:

• Wilderness is used as the opposite of a fruitful place.

Jeremiah 4:25-27 (KJV) I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. 26 I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger. 27 For thus hath the LORD said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end.

Isaiah 32:13-16 (KJV) Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers [useless, profitless]; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city: 14 Because the palaces shall be forsaken; the multitude of the city shall be left; the forts and towers shall be for dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks; 15 Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest. 16 Then judgment [or justice] shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field.

• Wilderness is used for “stripping Israel naked” of all of the blessings that God had placed upon her; hence, referring to unfruitfulness, lack of manifestation.

Hosea 2:3, 8-9 (KJV) Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst. Verse 8) For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. 9 Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.

• Jeremiah seems to refer to a wilderness as a place alone, away from his people.

Jeremiah 9:2 (KJV) Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.

• Wilderness is used as a place that is “desolate, without inhabitants, and where no one passes through.” 

Jeremiah 9:11-12 (KJV) And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant. 12 Who is the wise man, that may understand this? and who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD hath spoken, that he may declare it, for what the land perisheth and is burned up like a wilderness, that none passeth through?