1. Midbar', 'na^TQ (Sept tpijAwc,andM^ is of very frequent occurrence, and is ususfly w*^ *' wilderness" (Gen. xiv, 6, etc), though in ^ places " desert" (Exod. iii, 1 ; v, 1, etc), ind 'o P* Ixxv, 6, *» south." It property deognites pe^ ^roimd; being derived from na?f, tfaftor', "fc> *J^ significant of the pastoral castom of driving tbe^ out to feed in the morning, and home sgahi it oip^ and it means a wide, open tract used for psstnr^^
DESERT
151
DESERT
t ** common; ftxas, in Joel U, 22, ^*The pastares of €i^^ert shall flourish.'* It is the name most com- Txly applied to the country lying between Palestine L ££^*pt, including the peninsula of Sinai, through ictk the Israelites wandered (Gen. xxi, 14, 21 ; Exod. 27 ; xix, 2 ; Josh, i, 6, etc.). Now the peninsula Sixiai is a mountainous region ; in early spring its ntjr soil produces grass and green herbs, and, with t ex^oeption of one little plain on the north side of I great mountain-chain, there is no sand whatever, is small plain is expressly distinguished from the t by the name Debbet er-JRanUeh, ** plain of san^" >bi]isoD, Bib. Res. i, 77 ; Porter, Handbook/or Syria i F^cd. p. 2 sq.). On the other hand, in this whole ^on streams of water are not found except in win- and after heavy nun ; fountains are very rare, and »re are no «e<<^io habitants. Stanley, accordingly, B shown that *^sand is the exception and not the le of the Arabian Desert' ' of the peninsnla of Sinai alesi, p. 8, 9, 64). As to the other features of a des- t, certainly the penhisnla of Sinai is no plain, but re^on extremely variable in height, and diversified en at this day by oases and valleys of verdure and •getation, and by frequent wells, which were sU prob- \y far more abundant in those earlier times than ey now are. With regard to the Wilderness of the 'anderings — for which Midbar, or grasxng^ract (al- ost our ** prairie*'), is almost invariably used — this im is therefore most appropriate ; for we must never Tget that the Israelites had flocks and herds with lem daring the ijrhole of their passage to the Prom- ed Land. They had them when they left Egypt 9R>d. X, 26 ; xii, 88) ; they had them at Hazeroth, le middle point of the wanderings (Num. xi, 22), and >me of the tribes possessed them in large numbers nmediately before the transit of the Jordan (Num. xxii, 1). In speaking of the Wilderness of the Wan- Bxings the word *' desert" occurs as the rendering of fidbcur, in Exod. iil, 1 ; v, 3 ; xix, 2 ; Nam. xxxiii, 5, 16 ; and in more than one of dhese it is evidently mployed for the sake of euphony merely. See £x-
•DE.
Midbar is also used to denote the wUdemesa ofAra^ ia ; bat generally vrith the article '^^'isn, ** the des- rt'* (1 Kings ix, 18). The wilderness of Arabia is lot sandy ; it is a vast undulating plain, parched and tarren during summer and autumn, but in winter and arly spring yielding good pasture to the flocks of the Sedawin that roam over it. Hence the propriety of he expression patturti of the toUdemeta (Psa. Ixv, 13 ; Joel i, 19 ; compare Luke xv, 4). Thus it is that he Arabian tribes retieat into their deserts on the ap- jtroach of the autumnal rains, and when spring has mded and the droughts commence, return to the lands af rivers and mountains, in search of the pastures irhich the deserts no longer afibrd. It may also be observed that even deserts in the summer time are in- terspersed with fertile spots and clumps of herbage jacket's lUvMtralUm of Saiptwrt^ p. 25). The Mid- bar of Judah is the bleak mountainous region l3ing along the western shore of the Dead Sea, where David fed his father's flocks, and hid from Saul (1 Sam. xvii, 28 ; xxri, 2 sq.). The meaning of Mtintr in both these instances is thus likewise a district without set- tled inhabitants, without streams of water, but adapted for pasturage. It is the country of nomads, as distin- guished from that of the agricultural and settled peo- ple (Isa. XXXV, 1 ; 1, 2 ; Jer. iv, 11). The Greek equiv- alents in the New Test are tptifios and iprjfAia. John preached in the '* wilderness," i. e. the open, unpopu- lated country, and our Lord fed the multitudes in the "wilderness" or wild region east of the Dead Sea (Matt, iii, 8 ; XV, 88 ; Luke xv, 4). See Wilderness. Midbar b most frequently used for those tracts of waste land which lie beyond the cultivated ground in the immediate neighborhood of the towns and villages
of Palestine, and which are a very fkmiliar feature to the traveller in that country. In spring these tracts are covered with a rich green verdure of turf, and small shrubs, and herbs of various kinds. But at the end of summer the herbage withers, the turf dries up and is powdered thick with the dust of the chalky soil, and the whole has certainly a most dreary aspect. An ex- ample of this is furnished by the hills through which the path fh>m Bethany to Jericho pursues its winding descent In the spring, so abundant is the pasturage of these hills that Uiey are the resort of the flocks from Jerusalem on the one hand and Jericho on the other, and even from the Arabs on the other side of Jordan. Even in the month of September, though the turf is only visible on close hispection, large flocks of goats and sheep may be seen browsing, scattered over the slopes, or stretched out in a long, even line like a regi- ment of soldiers. A striking example of the same thing, and of the manner in which this waste pasture- land gradually melts into the uncultivated fields, is seen in making one's way up through the mountains of Benjamin, due west, frxnn Jericho to Mukhmas or Jeba. These Midbars seem to have borne the name of the town to which they were most contiguous, for ex- ample, Bethaven (in the region last referred to) ; Ziph, Maon, and Paran, in the south of Judah; Gibeon, Je- ruel, etc., etc. See Villaoe.