Deuteronomy 8:15-16

8:15 and who brought you through the great, fearful desert of venomous serpents ¹  and scorpions, an arid place with no water. He made water flow ²  from a flint rock and 8:16 fed you in the desert with manna (which your ancestors had never before known) so that he might by humbling you test you ³  and eventually bring good to you.

Nehemiah 9:19-21

9:19 “Due to your great compassion you did not abandon them in the desert. The pillar of cloud did not stop guiding them in the path by day, ⁴  nor did the pillar of fire stop illuminating for them by night the path on which they should travel. 9:20 You imparted your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths; you provided water for their thirst. 9:21 For forty years you sustained them. Even in the desert they never lacked anything. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.

Psalms 107:4-5

107:4 They wandered through the wilderness on a desert road;

they found no city in which to live.

107:5 They were hungry and thirsty;

they fainted from exhaustion. ⁵ 

The Song of Songs 8:5

The Awakening of Love

The Maidens about His Beloved:

8:5 Who is this coming up from the desert,

leaning on her beloved?

The Beloved to Her Lover:

Under the apple tree I aroused you; ⁶ 

there your mother conceived you,

there she who bore you was in labor of childbirth. ⁷ 

Jeremiah 2:6

2:6 They did not ask:

‘Where is the Lord who delivered us out of Egypt,

who brought us through the wilderness,

through a land of desert sands and rift valleys,

through a land of drought and deep darkness, ⁸ 

through a land in which no one travels,

and where no one lives?’ ⁹ 

Hosea 13:5

13:5 I cared ¹⁰  for you in the wilderness,

in the dry desert where no water was. ¹¹ 

[8:15]  ¹ tn Heb “flaming serpents”; KJV, NASB “fiery serpents”; NAB “saraph serpents.” This figure of speech (metonymy) probably describes the venomous and painful results of snakebite. The feeling from such an experience would be like a burning fire (שָׂרָף, saraf).

[8:15]  ² tn Heb “the one who brought out for you water.” In the Hebrew text this continues the preceding sentence, but the translation begins a new sentence here for stylistic reasons.

[8:16]  ³ tn Heb “in order to humble you and in order to test you.” See 8:2.

[9:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “did not turn from them by day to guide them in the path.”

[107:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “and their soul in them fainted.”

[8:5]  ⁶ sn The imagery of v. 6 is romantic: (1) His mother originally conceived him with his father under the apple tree, (2) his mother gave birth to him under the apple tree, and (3) the Beloved had now awakened him to love under the same apple tree. The cycle of life and love had come around full circle under the apple tree. While his mother had awakened his eyes to life, the Beloved had awakened him to love. His parents had made love under the apple tree to conceive him in love, and now Solomon and his Beloved were making love under the same apple tree of love.

[8:5]  ⁷ tn Or “went into labor.” The verb חָבַל (khaval, “become pregnant”) is repeated in 8:6b and 8:6c, and has a two-fold range of meaning: (1) transitive: “to conceive [a child]” and (2) intransitive: “to be in travail [of childbirth]” (HALOT 286 s.v. IV חבל). In 8:6b it denotes “to conceive,” and in 8:6c it is “to be in travail [of childbirth].”

[2:6]  ⁸ tn This word is erroneously rendered “shadow of death” in most older English versions; that translation is based on a faulty etymology. Contextual studies and comparative Semitic linguistics have demonstrated that the word is merely another word for darkness. It is confined to poetic texts and often carries connotations of danger and distress. It is associated in poetic texts with the darkness of a prison (Ps 107:10, 14), a mine (Job 28:3), and a ravine (Ps 23:4). Here it is associated with the darkness of the wasteland and ravines of the Sinai desert.

[2:6]  ⁹ sn The context suggests that the question is related to a lament where the people turn to God in their troubles, asking him for help and reminding him of his past benefactions. See for example Isa 63:11-19 and Ps 44. It is an implicit prayer for his intervention, cf. 2 Kgs 2:14.

[13:5]  ¹⁰ tc The MT reads יְדַעְתִּיךָ (yÿda’tikha, Qal perfect 1st person common singular + 2nd person masculine singular suffix from יָדַע, yada’, “to know”), followed by KJV, ASV (“I did know thee”). The LXX and Syriac reflect an alternate textual tradition of רְעִיתִיךָ (rÿ’it’kha, Qal perfect 1st person common singular + 2nd person masculine singular suffix from רָעָה, ra’ah, “to feed”), which is followed by most recent English versions (e.g., NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[13:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “land of intense drought” or “intensely thirsty land.” The noun תַּלְאֻבוֹת (tal’uvot) occurs in the OT only here. It probably means “drought” (BDB 520 s.v. תַּלְאֻבָה). The related Arabic verb means “to be thirsty” and the related Arabic noun means “a stony tract of land.” The plural form (singular = תַּלְאֻבָה, tal’uvah) is a plural of intensity: “a [land] of intense drought.” The term functions as an attributive genitive, modifying the construct אֶרֶץ (’erets, “land”). The phrase is variously rendered: “land of (+ great KJV) drought” (RSV, NASB), “thirsty land” (NJPS), “thirsty desert” (CEV), “dry, desert land” (TEV), and the metonymical (effect for cause) “land of burning heat” (NIV).