19 Bible Verses about Deserts

But desert creatures will lie down there,
And their houses will be full of owls;
Ostriches also will live there, and wild goats will dance there.

I am like a [mournful] vulture of the wilderness;
I am like a [desolate] owl of the wasteland.

Then the Israelites, the whole congregation, came into the Wilderness of Zin in the first month [in the fortieth year after leaving Egypt]. And the people lived in Kadesh. Miriam died there and was buried there.

But Joab and Abishai [Asahel’s brothers] pursued Abner. When the sun was going down, they came to the hill of Ammah, which is in front of Giah on the way to the wilderness of Gibeon.

I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines (the Mediterranean), and from the wilderness to the River Euphrates; for I will hand over the residents of the land to you, and you shall drive them out before you.

When they moved out from Rephidim, they came to the Wilderness of Sinai and they camped there; Israel camped at the base of the mountain [of Sinai].

So they arose and went to Ziph ahead of Saul. Now David and his men were in the Wilderness of Maon, in the Arabah south of Jeshimon.

But an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go south to the road that runs from Jerusalem down to Gaza.” (This is a desert road).

When the apostles returned, they told Him all that they had done. He took them with Him and He privately withdrew [across the Jordan] to a city called Bethsaida.

And they went away by themselves in the boat to a secluded place.

The child continued to grow and to become strong in spirit, and he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel [as John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Messiah].

When daybreak came, Jesus left [Simon Peter’s house] and went to a secluded place; and the crowds were searching for Him, and [they] came to Him and tried to keep Him from leaving them.

(The Chorus)
“Who is this coming up from the wilderness
Leaning upon her beloved?”

(The Shulammite Bride)
“What is this coming up from the wilderness
Like [stately] pillars of smoke
Perfumed with myrrh and frankincense,
With all the fragrant powders of the merchant?”

He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up;
And He led them through the depths as through a pasture.

He turns rivers into a wilderness,
And springs of water into a thirsty ground;

He turns a wilderness into a pool of water
And a dry land into springs of water;

The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it will come down on you until you are destroyed.

A wind too strong and full for winnowing comes at My word. Now I will also speak in judgment against [My people]. Behold, [the enemy] comes up like clouds, his chariots like the whirlwind; his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are ruined (destroyed)!

Many shepherds [of an invading host] have destroyed My vineyard, they have trampled My portion underfoot; they have made My pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. They have made it a desolation, and desolate it mourns before Me; the whole land has been made desolate, but no man lays it to heart. Destroyers have come upon all the bare heights in the desert, for the sword of the Lord devours from one end of the land even to the other; no flesh has peace or can find the means to escape. read more.
They have sown wheat but have reaped thorns; they have worn themselves out but without profit. And they shall be ashamed of your [lack of] harvests and revenues because of the fierce and glowing anger of the Lord.

Your mother [Babylon] shall be greatly shamed;
She who gave you birth will be ashamed.
Behold, she will be the least of the nations,
A wilderness, a parched land and a desert.

For Pharaoh will say of the Israelites, ‘They are wandering aimlessly in the land; the wilderness has shut them in.’

many times on journeys, [exposed to] danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own countrymen, danger from the Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger on the sea, danger among those posing as believers;

Then Moses said, “Please do not leave us, for you know how we are to camp in the wilderness, and you will serve as eyes for us [as we make our trek through the desert].

“He found him in a desert land,
In the howling wasteland of a wilderness;
He kept circling him, He took care of him,
He protected him as the apple of His eye.

“Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see;
Where have you not been violated?
You sat by the road waiting [eagerly] for them [those man-made gods]
Like an Arab [tribesman who waits to attack] in the desert,
And you have desecrated the land
With your [vile] prostitution and your wickedness (disobedience to God).

Our pursuers were swifter
Than the eagles of the sky;
They pursued us on the mountains,
They waited in ambush for us in the wilderness.

So Abraham got up early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, and gave her the boy, and sent her away. And she left [but lost her way] and wandered [aimlessly] in the Wilderness of Beersheba.

Then he was afraid and arose and went for his life and came to Beersheba of Judah [over eighty miles, and out of Jezebel's realm] and left his servant there. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a lone broom or juniper tree and asked that he might die. He said, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am no better than my fathers.

He led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; it was He who brought water for you out of the flinty rock.

Then all the congregation of the children of Israel moved on from the Wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.

(people of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and [living in] caves and holes in the ground.

David stayed in the wilderness in strongholds, in the hill country of the Wilderness of Ziph. Saul searched for him every day, but God did not hand David over to him.

He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

and the Israelites set out on their journey from the Wilderness of Sinai, and the cloud [of the Lord’s guiding presence] settled down in the Wilderness of Paran.

Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own land. And I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.”’”

In that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, “A scorching wind from the barren heights in the wilderness [comes at My command] against the daughter of My people—not [a wind] to winnow and not to cleanse [from chaff, as when threshing, but]

Then the Israelites, the whole congregation, came into the Wilderness of Zin in the first month [in the fortieth year after leaving Egypt]. And the people lived in Kadesh. Miriam died there and was buried there.

because in the Wilderness of Zin, during the strife of the congregation, you rebelled against My command to treat me as holy [by following My instruction] before their eyes at the water.” (These are the waters of Meribah in Kadesh in the Wilderness of Zin.)

“Go and proclaim in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord,

“I remember [earnestly] the lovingkindness and devotion of your youth,
Your time of betrothal [like that of a bride during the early years in Egypt and again at Sinai],
When you followed Me in the wilderness,
Through a land not sown.

Why have you made us come up from Egypt, to bring us to this wretched place? It is not a place of grain or of figs or of vines or of pomegranates, and there is no water to drink.”

“I will put the cedar in the wilderness,
The acacia, the myrtle and the olive tree;
I will place the juniper in the desert
Together with the box tree and the cypress,

The wilderness and the dry land will be glad;
The Arabah (desert) will shout in exultation and blossom
Like the autumn crocus.

These are the sons of Zibeon: Aiah and Anah. This is the Anah who found the hot springs in the wilderness as he pastured the donkeys of Zibeon his father.

Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro (Reuel) his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb (Sinai), the mountain of God.

Everyone who was suffering hardship, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him; and he became captain over them. There were about four hundred men with him.

Then you are not [as I assumed] the Egyptian who some time ago stirred up a rebellion and led those 4,000 men of the Assassins out into the wilderness?”

When evening came, the disciples came to Him and said, “This is an isolated place and the hour is already late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”

He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a little while”—for there were many [people who were continually] coming and going, and they could not even find time to eat.

He was in the wilderness forty days being tempted [to do evil] by Satan; and He was with the wild animals, and the angels ministered continually to Him.

But desert creatures will lie down there,
And their houses will be full of owls;
Ostriches also will live there, and wild goats will dance there.

So they gathered them up, and they filled twelve large baskets with pieces from the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten.

Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please, let us go on a three days’ journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God, so that He does not discipline us with pestilence or with the sword.”

Go down against them tomorrow. Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz, and you will find them at the end of the river valley, in front of the Wilderness of Jeruel.

David remained in the wilderness strongholds in the hill country of the Wilderness of Ziph. Saul sought him every day, but God did not give him into his hands. David saw that Saul had come out to seek his life. David was in the Wilderness of Ziph in the wood [at Horesh].

So they arose and went to Ziph ahead of Saul. Now David and his men were in the Wilderness of Maon, in the Arabah south of Jeshimon. Saul and his men went to seek him. And David was told; so he went down to the rock in the Wilderness of Maon and stayed. When Saul heard that, he pursued David in the Wilderness of Maon.

“He found him in a desert land,
In the howling wasteland of a wilderness;
He kept circling him, He took care of him,
He protected him as the apple of His eye.

“So I sent messengers from the Wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon king of Heshbon with words of peace, saying,

“Then we set out from Horeb (Sinai), and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, just as the Lord our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.

And God was with the youth, and he developed; and he dwelt in the wilderness and became an archer. He dwelt in the Wilderness of Paran; and his mother took a wife for him out of the land of Egypt.

He led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; it was He who brought water for you out of the flinty rock.

Why has my pain been perpetual
And my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?
Will you indeed be to me like a deceptive brook
With water that is unreliable?

The Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the Wilderness of Damascus; and when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram (Syria);

When Saul returned from following the Philistines, he was told, “Behold, David is in the Wilderness of Engedi.”

But Joab and Abishai [Asahel’s brothers] pursued Abner. When the sun was going down, they came to the hill of Ammah, which is in front of Giah on the way to the wilderness of Gibeon.

In the third month after the Israelites left the land of Egypt, the same day, they came into the Wilderness of Sinai. When they had departed from Rephidim and had come to the Wilderness of Sinai, they encamped there before the mountain.

“O generation [that you are], consider and regard carefully the word of the Lord.
Have I been a wilderness to Israel [like a land without food],
A land of thick and deep darkness [like a path without light]?
Why do My people say, ‘We [have broken loose and we] are free to roam [at will];
We will no longer come to You’?

“For he will be like a shrub in the [parched] desert;
And shall not see prosperity when it comes,
But shall live in the rocky places of the wilderness,
In an uninhabited salt land.

I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines (the Mediterranean), and from the wilderness to the River Euphrates; for I will hand over the residents of the land to you, and you shall drive them out before you.

But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea; the sons of Israel went up in battle array (orderly ranks, marching formation) out of the land of Egypt.

On the north side their border began at the Jordan, then it went up the slope of Jericho on the north, and up through the hill country westward, and it ended at the Beth-aven wilderness.

But the Angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, on the road to [Egypt by way of] Shur.

“They did not say, ‘Where is the Lord
Who brought us up from the land of Egypt,
Who led us through the wilderness,
Through a land of deserts and of pits,
Through a land of drought and of the deep darkness [of the shadow of death],
Through a land that no man passed through
And where no man lived?’

“Listen carefully, I am about to do a new thing,
Now it will spring forth;
Will you not be aware of it?
I will even put a road in the wilderness,
Rivers in the desert.

And I will stretch out My hand against them and make the land a more desolate waste than the wilderness toward Diblah [the Moabite city], throughout all the places where they live; and they will know [without any doubt] that I am the Lord.”’”

The [mournful, inspired] oracle (a burden to be carried) concerning the Desert of the Sea (the seasonally flooded plains just south of Babylon):

As windstorms in the Negev (the South) sweep through,
So it (God’s judgment) comes from the desert, from [the hostile armies of] a terrifying land.

In those days John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the Wilderness of Judea [along the western side of the Dead Sea] and saying,

Jehoram said, “Which way shall we go up?” Jehoshaphat answered, “The way through the Wilderness of Edom.”

They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of Israel came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they left the land of Egypt.

The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;
The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

But an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go south to the road that runs from Jerusalem down to Gaza.” (This is a desert road).

Or I will strip her naked
And expose her as on the day she was born,
And make her like a wilderness
And make her like a parched land
And slay her with thirst.

A [mournful, inspired] oracle (a burden to be carried) concerning the beasts of the Negev (the South):

Through a land of trouble and anguish,
From where come lioness and lion, viper and [fiery] flying serpent,
They carry their riches on the shoulders of young donkeys
And their treasures on the humps of camels,
To a people (Egyptians) who cannot benefit them.

He led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; it was He who brought water for you out of the flinty rock.