A False Wilderness
Welcome back everyone as we continue with Torah Today Ministries and our series called The Hebrew Key, where I take a thought or a word in the Hebrew scriptures — a concept — and expand it out to see what kind of insights it has to afford us, and also give us an idea of how the rabbis of the ages have engaged with the Hebrew scriptures.
And this week’s episode is called “The Hebrew Key: A False Wilderness.” A false wilderness — what does that mean?
Well, I want us to first of all learn a Hebrew word that’s going to be familiar to many of you, and that’s the word davar (דָּבָר).
Now if you are listening to this on a podcast, or you’re driving the car, or walking the neighborhood, or at the gym — make sure that you download the notes. Go to our website, TorahTodayMinistries.org, and you can print out the notes and see the words that I’m pointing out. But in the meantime you can just listen and follow along. And this is also one of those teachings you may want to go back and do again, because once you hear the end of the teaching, the beginning of the teaching will also make more sense.
Here’s the word davar: dalet, bet, resh (דבר). And it is the word that means “word.” A davar (דָּבָר) is a word. And if we pronounce the word daber (דַּבֵּר), it means “speak.” So I could have also put the word “speak” there — as a noun it’s a word, as a verb it’s “speak.”
In fact, the first sentence in Deuteronomy gives us the Hebrew name of the book of Deuteronomy, which is Devarim (דְּבָרִים) — the plural of “words.”
Eleh ha-devarim asher dibber Moshe el kol Yisrael — “These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel.” — Deuteronomy 1:1
And I will underline as we go: eleh — “these are” — ha-devarim — you can see davar, dalet-bet-resh — the -im on the end makes it plural. Like “a cherub” is one angel, “cherubim” are several cherubs. And asher dibber — “which he spoke” — dibber means “spoke,” and there you see the same three letters. Moshe el kol Yisrael — “Moses to all Israel.”
So twice here in the opening words of Deuteronomy 1, we find this word in both its noun form and in its verb form. And again, the Hebrew name of the book of Deuteronomy is Devarim, based on that second word there.
Now something interesting happens if we add a letter to the word davar (דָּבָר). When you add the letter mem (מ) to the front, we get the word midbar (מִדְבָּר). And midbar is the Hebrew word for “wilderness.”
As I’m doing this teaching, we are in the Torah cycle where we are in the middle of the book of Numbers. And what a horrible name for a Bible book that is — who wants to call a Bible book “Numbers”? Who wants to read that? But that is not its name in Hebrew. In Hebrew it’s called Bamidbar (בְּמִדְבָּר) — which means “in the wilderness” — because midbar means wilderness.
Let’s take a look. Here we have the opening words of the book of Numbers:
Vayedabber Adonai el Moshe bamidbar Sinai — “And Adonai spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai.” — Numbers 1:1
And again we see the word daber — the verb — but we see it as part of the word for “wilderness.”
Now I believe, as Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) said, every jot and tittle is hand-designed by God and placed by God. And he inspired the writers of the Torah (תּוֹרָה) — and the conversations in the Torah, there’s only one writer, and that’s Moses — but I believe he inspired him to place every letter as he did. And every letter has purpose and has meaning. And the jots and tittles will not pass away from the Torah till everything’s fulfilled.
And so if God has at the root of the word for “wilderness” the word for “word” — the word for “speak” — there’s something there he wants to tell us. And of course it’s pretty clear when we think about it: where was it that when God spoke from the top of Mount Sinai, where were the people? They were in the wilderness.
You know, all of us go through a wilderness experience. It is not optional. We are ordained by God — as we move from slavery to sin and from fear of death, and as we move into the life of fruitfulness and purpose — God makes us take a detour through the wilderness.
When the Israelites left Egypt, the logical way for them to get to Canaan was just to move north — just move around the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, and they step across the border between Egypt and Canaan. There they are, boom, you’re there. But God’s ways are not man’s ways. And God took them on a detour. Instead of just taking them north right into the land of Israel, he took them further east — took them to the wilderness, took them to a mountain, took them to a place of great desolation, a place of danger. But he wanted to be alone with his people. And it was there in the wilderness that he spoke to them from Mount Sinai.
There’s a time, as we grow in Messiah, as we grow in obedience to God — God wants to spend time speaking his word into our lives. So we will encounter his davar (דָּבָר) while we are in the midbar (מִדְבָּר). And there are times throughout our lives where we have to revisit the wilderness. God has a wilderness experience attached to so many things, so many endeavors that we encounter in life.
And there’s an interesting statement in the Midrash Rabbah (מִדְרָשׁ רַבָּה). Now what does that mean? The Midrash Rabbah — as my friend Daniel Lancaster likes to call it — is the ancient Bible studies. And it is published in various versions. We have these in English today. This is the version published by ArtScroll publishers, and this is one volume just of the book of Numbers — there are three volumes just on Numbers, or I should say Bamidbar. And this is the first of three volumes, so the whole set for the Torah is about 12 or 13 volumes in all.
But there’s a fascinating phrase in the commentary — the study here on the book of Bamidbar — and it says this:
The Torah was given through three things: fire, water, and wilderness.
And then it goes on to explain — I didn’t put the whole quote here, but: it was given in the presence of fire, because when God spoke there was fire on top of the mountain. It was given in the presence of water, because as it says later on in the book of Judges:
Adonai, when you went out from Seir, when you marched from the region of Edom, the earth trembled, the heavens dripped — yes, the clouds dropped water. — Judges 5:4
And this is describing the experience as they came to Mount Sinai. So you have fire and water. By the way — whenever you see fire and water dwelling together in peace, God’s presence is there. That’s something we’ll talk about at a later date. But also they were in the wilderness.
The Midrash Rabbah goes on to explain why the Torah was given in the presence of these three things. It says: because they are all free to everyone. Fire does not cost you anything — you can make it yourself. Water doesn’t cost you anything — when it rains, or you go to the river or the beach or the spring, the water is there; it’s free for everyone. And the wilderness — it’s also free for everyone. And likewise, the words of Torah, God says, are free for everyone. “Whosoever is thirsty, let him come and drink.” So this is an amazing insight to me.
So the davar of God was given in the midbar.
Now as I said, the shortcut from Egypt to Canaan is just to go north. But God took them on this long detour. They came to Mount Sinai, they spent about a year there — God gave them his commandments, he gave them instructions for building the Tabernacle, and they spent that year building the Tabernacle. They completed the work. And then early in Deuteronomy it tells us: it was only an 11-day journey. 11 days from Mount Sinai to the Jordan River. 11 days — less than two weeks.
But because of their cowardliness and their faithlessness, they stretched those 11 days into 40 years.
Now you can’t speed up your wilderness experience, and you can’t avoid the wilderness experience. But you certainly can make it a lot longer than it needs to be. Its duration, to a great degree, depends upon you and me.
And what was the purpose of the wilderness? Well, first of all as we mentioned, it was a place where God gave them his word. It’s when you’re alone with God — maybe going through a difficult time, a sterile, kind of depressing, dry time in your life — where the word of God just comes to life. And it’s a gift from God — a time for you to really delve into his word and get to know him through it.
There’s also a time of testing. None of us avoid testing — everything in life is a test in one way or the other.
It’s also a place of death. That older generation that came out of Egypt — those who were over 20 years of age — they died in the wilderness. There were hundreds of burials every day during those 40 years. And there are parts of us that come out of Egypt that still need to die. Though God brings us out of Egypt, it takes a while to get Egypt out of us. Though he had taken them away from Pharaoh, there was still an inner Pharaoh speaking to their hearts and minds — always wanting to draw them back to Egypt, to go back to the security and predictable life of Egypt. There are things in us that need to die. And Paul talks about this need for us to die consistently in his letters and his writings.
So death is not something we need to fear at all. In fact, what did the Master say? “If any man would come after me, he must deny himself, he must take up his cross daily.” What’s the cross for? It’s an instrument of death. And then we follow him. We have to learn to say no to our own ways and yes to his. And every time we do that, we die a little bit more to ourselves — but we come more alive to him. And that’s definitely worth the trade.
It’s also a place of growth. While the older generation was dying, that younger generation — 20 years and under — they were growing up. They were having children. And a new generation arose up to replace the old ones who died. And so there’s a time of new life — and the wilderness is a place where the new life begins to grow and replace the old.
It’s also a place for learning warfare. They learned some warfare when they battled the Amalekites there in Exodus. They learned warfare as they came up to the Jordan River and they defeated Sihon and Og — these two amazing armies, these two giants of warfare — and they defeated them both. That’s another topic we will cover in a future teaching. But they learned warfare.
God’s word is called a sword — the “sword of the Spirit” is what Paul calls it. And what’s interesting is: though God gave his word, his Torah (תּוֹרָה), at Mount Sinai — Mount Sinai has another name. “Mount Horeb,” as our English translations render it. But in Hebrew it’s Mount Khorav (חֹרֵב). And khorav has two meanings. First of all, it’s Horeb — the mountain where God gave us Torah. But the word itself means “sword.” So God gave his davar (דָּבָר) on “Mount Sword.” He gave his word on Mount Sword. No coincidence there.
And we need to learn how to do spiritual warfare. We need to learn how to use our sword — the word of God. Because the word of God is dangerous. If we’re not careful, we will harm ourselves and we will harm our brothers and sisters if we do not use it skillfully. And too often I find that believers and faith communities use God’s word against one another instead of against their enemy. This is a sad thing to behold. Because a sword will cut just as easily whether it’s friendly troops or enemy troops. We need to learn how to apply it, how to use it.
Because once the people crossed the Jordan River into Canaan, it was constant warfare as they conquered the land. And so in the wilderness — the midbar — is where we learn how to wage that warfare skillfully, using the word of God.
So the title of this teaching is “False Wilderness.” Where did I get that?
Well, what we’ve learned about the word davar (דָּבָר) and how it’s there in the word midbar (מִדְבָּר) — “a wilderness” — we come to this verse, Exodus 23:7. And this is how it’s translated:
From a false word, distance yourself. — Exodus 23:7
Some translations say just “distance yourself from falsehood” — good advice, definitely good advice. Because we are surrounded and fed falsehoods in the way of TV shows and movies and books and commercials and news, and we should try to distance ourselves from falsehoods — from things that are deceiving, things that will rob us of truth and of joy.
Now “from a false word, distance yourself” — those six words in English are only three words in Hebrew. Here they are:
Rakhok (רָחֹק) — “distance yourself.” Sheker (שֶׁקֶר) — the middle word, the word for falsehood, a lie. But look at that first word: mem, dalet, bet, resh.
Now if we slice it between the first two letters, you have mi- — “from” — and davar — “a word.” When you add a mem to the front of a word, it means “from.” Mi-davar — “from a word.” And of course when you read the sentence you understand it’s talking about distancing ourselves from a false word — a davar (דָּבָר) that is sheker (שֶׁקֶר), that is false.
But you know, in a Torah scroll there are no vowel points — there’s no punctuation. All you see are just the bare letters. And if you glance down at the Torah scroll and you see this first word, the first thing that’s going to go through your mind is midbar — “wilderness.” Then you see sheker — “false.” False wilderness.
Oh — it must mean “from a word that is false.” So you’re thinking — and I’m sure you’re thinking now — “Well, Grant, you’re really making a lot out of how this could be misinterpreted at first as a false wilderness, and how we should distance ourselves from a false wilderness.” But we all know that is not exactly what the verse really means.
But I want to share something with you. I want you to see something here. When you glance down that Torah scroll, the first word you see you’re going to translate as midbar — “wilderness” — and the next one only has one meaning: sheker — “false.” And in that split second, before you correct yourself and realize, “Oh — from a false word,” you have this image of a false wilderness.
Did you ever make sparks by striking a piece of steel against a piece of flint? You get sparks. This is how in pioneer days they would start a fire — get some kindling and make some sparks. And even now if you’re in survival classes, you’ll learn how to do that. Well, there’s something that happens when the light of your own mind strikes upon the words of the Hebrew scriptures — and those brief moments, sparks fly off. Like this one: false wilderness. Then you say, “Oh, that’s just a spark, that’s not the main message.” But the rabbis take these sparks — they take these insights of how words can mean other things — and from those they draw truths. And with this spark, there is a deep truth there for us.
Because you see, our wilderness experience is very real. And as we saw, it is a place where God deals with us — by giving us his word, by testing us, by allowing and causing those parts of us that are wrong and need to be destroyed to die — and where the new life he breathes into us matures and grows up and takes over. It’s a time for learning warfare.
But I’ve met people — I’m sure you have too — who claim to be going through a wilderness experience, but it’s not the wilderness experience God ordained. They’ll claim to be going through some suffering and dying to self, and they’ll even boast about it — not realizing that their boasting is one of those things that needs to die. They may learn some new theology and then begin to think, “Oh, I’m really growing, I’m really maturing.” No — not necessarily. Satan has perfect theology, but he’s still Satan. C.S. Lewis said: educate a devil and all you get is a clever devil. Your theology doesn’t necessarily change your character.
And we can go through all these things and think that we’re in a wilderness — that we’re growing, that we’re dying to self, that we’re learning spiritual warfare, that we’re growing spiritually — and it’s just all in our heads. It’s not real. It’s a fake. We’re not really in the ordained wilderness that God has ordained for us. We’re just imagining that we are. And if we’re just imagining that we are, we’re probably still back in Egypt — probably still in slavery — and we’re just imagining a false wilderness.
The wilderness also is a place of great miracles. Every day they drank water that flowed from a rock. They ate manna that just fell from heaven — that appeared on the ground every day. There was a protective cloud over them during the heat of the day, and there was a column of fire over them at night to give light. They saw many miracles in the wilderness. But some people are in a false wilderness where they claim there are all kinds of miracles in their lives that really aren’t.
Some of these may be just normal everyday activities that God ordains for us to go through. And then sometimes they just make it up. One of the things I despise is when I’m with a group of believers and one begins to tell of a spiritual experience, and then another one has to share his spiritual experience and one-up the first guy. Then a third guy will pop up — “Well, this is what happened to me.” I’m thinking: this is all false wilderness. All these so-called miracles. We don’t boast about miracles. We don’t boast about our experiences. We boast in our God and his patient, daily watchcare over us.
So I’m going to leave you there with that. And just as I’ve been talking — is there something in your own heart and mind that prompts you to think that maybe you’ve experienced some false wilderness? If you are, it’s because you’re avoiding the real one. The real wilderness involves real pain — and that’s okay. Growing up is a painful thing. Dying is a painful thing. And sometimes having to learn God’s word and internalize it can be delightful but painful as well — because we are, after all, dealing with a sharp two-edged sword. A living sword that cuts. It cuts deeply, dividing between the soul and the spirit, between the thoughts and the intents of the heart. And as God’s sword cuts through us and exposes what’s there, it can be painful to see what we’re made of. But until we are, we can’t really correct it, can we?
So make sure if you’re going through a wilderness, it’s a true wilderness — a midbar emet (מִדְבָּר אֱמֶת) — a true one. Not a midbar sheker (מִדְבָּר שֶׁקֶר).
So that’s just a spark that flies off the verse when you first glance down at it in Hebrew. And of course it is not the literal translation of the verse — please don’t think it is. But constantly the rabbis are seeing these sparks and they share them, and there’s delight. It’s almost as if we have God as our playmate — as he enjoys showing us these multiple dimensions of his holy word, his incredible and amazing Torah (תּוֹרָה).
So you may want to go back and start this over again and pick up those early words and follow along with the notes to make sure you haven’t missed anything. But the most important thing is just to make sure you do not find yourself in a false wilderness — because we don’t have time to waste. God’s calling us to go through the true one so he can make the changes in us that need to be made — so he can make us the people he wants us to be.
So be blessed, and I say shalom (שָׁלוֹם) until next time.
Davar (דָּבָר) — “Word”; spelled dalet-bet-resh (דבר). As a noun: a word, a thing, a matter. As a verb (daber, דַּבֵּר): “to speak.” The root embedded at the heart of midbar (מִדְבָּר) — “wilderness.” God designed the Hebrew language so that the place of speaking (midbar) contains the act of speaking (davar) — because the wilderness is where God speaks. The Hebrew name of Deuteronomy is Devarim (דְּבָרִים) — “Words” — from this same root. — Strong’s H1697
Midbar (מִדְבָּר) — “Wilderness, desert”; spelled mem-dalet-bet-resh (מדבר). Contains the root davar (דָּבָר) — “word/speak” — with a mem prefix. The wilderness is not merely a desolate place; it is the place where God speaks. God gave his Torah at Sinai in the midbar — the word was given in the wilderness. The Hebrew name of the book of Numbers is Bamidbar (בְּמִדְבָּר) — “in the wilderness.” — Strong’s H4057
Devarim (דְּבָרִים) — “Words”; the Hebrew name of the book of Deuteronomy, taken from its opening verse: Eleh ha-devarim — “These are the words.” The plural of davar (דָּבָר). The entire book is framed as Moses’ final words to Israel before they cross the Jordan. — Strong’s H1697 · Sefaria: Deuteronomy 1:1
Sheker (שֶׁקֶר) — “Falsehood, lie, deception”; the word for “false” in Exodus 23:7 — midavar sheker (מִדְּבַר שֶׁקֶר), “distance yourself from a false word.” In the Torah scroll without vowel points, the first word can be read as midbar (wilderness) before the reader self-corrects. This “spark” — midbar sheker, false wilderness — becomes the teaching. — Strong’s H8267
Rakhok (רָחֹק) — “Far, distance yourself”; the command in Exodus 23:7. To put distance between yourself and falsehood — mi-davar sheker, from a false word. — Strong’s H7368
Khorav (חֹרֵב) / Horeb — Mount Horeb; the other name for Mount Sinai. The word khorav means “sword” in Hebrew. God gave his davar (word) on the mountain whose name means “sword” — because his word is a sword (Hebrews 4:12). The place of revelation is the place of the sword. — Strong’s H2722
Midbar Emet (מִדְבָּר אֱמֶת) — “True wilderness”; the genuine, God-ordained wilderness experience — a place of real pain, real death of self, real growth, real learning of spiritual warfare, and real encounter with God’s word. Contrasted with midbar sheker (מִדְבָּר שֶׁקֶר) — the false wilderness of imagined spiritual experience, self-congratulatory theology, and manufactured miracles. — Strong’s H571 (emet)
Manna (מָן) — “What is it?”; the bread from heaven that appeared on the ground every morning in the wilderness. A daily miracle and a picture of God’s word — as Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) taught: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word (davar) that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Deuteronomy 8:3). — Strong’s H4478
Midrash Rabbah (מִדְרָשׁ רַבָּה) — “The Great Commentary/Study”; the ancient rabbinic Bible studies on the books of Torah and the Five Scrolls. The ArtScroll edition spans approximately 12–13 volumes for the Torah alone. Contains the teaching that Torah was given through three things: fire, water, and wilderness — all free to everyone. — Sefaria: Midrash Rabbah on Bamidbar
Shalom (שָׁלוֹם) — “Peace, wholeness, completeness, well-being.” — Strong’s H7965
Open All Scripture in Bible Gateway
דבר (davar) = “word”
Deuteronomy 1:1 אלה הדברים אשׁר דבר משׁה אל כל ישׂראל…
מדבר (midbar) = “wilderness”
Numbers 1:1 וידבר יהוה אל משׁה במדבר סיני…
The Torah was given through three things: fire, water, and wilderness. (Bamidbar Rabbah 1:7)
Purpose of the Wilderness:
Torah
Testing
Death
Growth
Learning Warfare
חרב (chorev) = “Horeb” / “sword”
Exodus 23:7 From a false word distance yourself … מדבר שׁקר תרחק …
REFERENCES:
Judges 5:4 “Adonai, when you went out from Seir, when you marched from the region of Edom, the earth trembled and the heavens dropped, yes, the clouds dropped water.”
Exodus 3:1 Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness, and came to Horeb(חרב), the mountain of God.
A person who rejects his suffering is in effect telling God, “Get away from me!” (R’ Nachman)
Pain and suffering are inevitable in our lives, but misery is an option. (Chip Beck)
Challenges make life interesting; however, overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. (Mark Twain)
