What does desert mean in hebrew

Live map showing the location of the languages featured in the virtual exhibition. What does wilderness mean in your language? Its international contributions are still growing. Skip to main content. The Negev desert. Photograph by William P. Let's look at what the two English words mean.

Today most people would say that desert is a barren land, likely arid, and probably hot and full of sand. A wilderness, on the other hand, is full of wild vegetation, but not settled by humans. However, these were not the original meanings of the words.

Only in the 20th century did desert become associated with aridity. Before that there are many examples of desert being used in places that were clearly not arid think of "desert island", which was the original phrase, not "deserted island", despite the increase in use of the latter recently. Wilderness also meant something similar - an uninhabited or uncultivated place. So while there may have been differences in nuance between desert and wilderness, until relatively recently , they were pretty much synonyms.

So if both words are used to translate midbar , that shouldn't concern us too much. But that said, what was the nature of the biblical word midbar? The answer is found in what I wrote above, that midbar originally meant "a place where cattle were pushed forward to graze.

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