Wilderness of Judea #66

The Wilderness of Judea, also called the Judean Desert or the wilderness of Judah, is the stark strip of dry hills and canyons that runs from the ridge east of Jerusalem and Bethlehem down to the Dead Sea. Though only about 10 to 20 miles wide, it drops several thousand feet, from the well-watered hill country to the lowest place on earth. Because it lies in the rain shadow of the Judean mountains, it gets very little rain, and it has long been a place of refuge, solitude, and testing.

Biblical Significance

Scripture returns to this wilderness again and again. Judges records that descendants of Moses’ father-in-law settled in the wilderness of Judah (Judges 1:16). When Saul hunted David, David took refuge in the strongholds of this region, including En Gedi, and “Saul sought him every day, but God delivered him not into his hand” (1 Samuel 23:14; 24:1). The superscription of Psalm 63 places David “in the wilderness of Judah,” and the poem’s cry, “my soul thirsteth for thee,” sounds like the voice of someone who knew dry country firsthand (Psalm 63:1).

In the New Testament, John the Baptist grows up “in the deserts” (Luke 1:80) and begins preaching “in the wilderness of Judaea,” saying “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:1-2). Matthew ties his work to Isaiah’s words about a voice crying in the wilderness (Matthew 3:3; Isaiah 40:3). He baptized in the Jordan River, at the eastern edge of this region, and crowds came out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea (Mark 1:4-5).

After his baptism, Jesus was “led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil,” where he fasted forty days (Matthew 4:1-2). The Gospels do not name the exact location of the wilderness of the temptation, but Christian tradition has generally placed it in this Judean desert, and a mountain overlooking Jericho has long been pointed out as the traditional site. The tradition is old, but it remains a tradition. The road from Jerusalem down to Jericho, which passes through this region, is the setting for the parable of the man who fell among robbers (Luke 10:30).

Today

The Judean Desert today is dotted with ancient and modern monasteries, springs, and archaeological sites. The Greek Orthodox monastery of Mar Saba, founded in the late fifth century by Saint Sabbas, still clings to a cliff in the Kidron Valley and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited monasteries in the world. The monastery of Saint George in Wadi Qelt and the Monastery of the Temptation near Jericho continue the tradition of desert monasticism, which flourished in the Byzantine period.

The dry climate has preserved remarkable finds, including papyri and scroll fragments in caves such as those at Qumran and Nahal Hever. Hikers and Bedouin herders still cross the wadis, and the harsh landscape helps modern readers picture what the Bible means by wilderness.