Wandering

The Wandering of Israel in the Wilderness refers to the forty-year period between the Exodus from Egypt and the entry into Canaan, during which the Israelites traversed the Sinai peninsula and surrounding regions. The proximate cause was God's judgment on the generation that refused to enter Canaan after the report of the twelve spies (Numbers 13–14): because they believed the ten fearful spies over Caleb and Joshua and wept in unbelief, God declared that all adults twenty years and older at the time of the census would die in the wilderness (Numbers 14:26–35). The itinerary of the wilderness period is recorded in Numbers 33, listing forty-two stopping points. Deuteronomy's retrospective frames the wandering as both judgment and discipline: "thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee" (Deuteronomy 8:2). The New Testament uses the wilderness generation typologically as a warning against unbelief (1 Corinthians 10:1–11; Hebrews 3:7–4:11).