How much territory did Moses and the Hebrews cover during thier 40 years wandering the desert?

Question

Did they go around in circles and cover the same places several times over or what?
I mean 40 years is a long time to be on the go...don't ya think?

Answer 1

yes, they just wondered in the Desert. God made them wander so long so the ungreatfull Jews would die before they ever reached the promise land, but so thier children could enter it. Becuase after Moses freed the slaves from the Egyptans many of them cursed god and said they would rather still be slaves.

Answer 2

The number 40 was frequently used in the Bible to define an undeterminable length of time. Many scholars have argued that the 40 years given in the Bible corrospnds with the passing of the enslaved generation, which could have taken 40 years I don't know I wasn't there.

The Hebrews likely wandered around the Middle East in the same manner that modern Arab nomads do. Moving from place to place, and covering hundreds of miles of terrain. Maybe the Hebrews followed the Red Sea coastline into Arabia, who knows.

Answer 3

Intro to the story:
When Moses and the Jewish people set out for Israel after finally receiving the ten commandments and many oral teachings, the people asked to send spies to check out the situation.
Out of 12 spies, 10 came back to complain that they will never be able to conquer the land g-d promised them. (They didn't have enough faith). Only 2 asserted Moses' promise that with g-d's help, anything's possible and that they'd be able to conquer Israel with no problem. Because of the people's lack in faith after all of the miracles g-d did for them (10 plagues, splitting of the sea, water from a rock, mana....) and because of their complaints, they are punished to wander the desert.

The bible states "wilderness", but if we know that it's from Egypt to Israel, and that the nations that fought with the Israelites were Amalek (situated in the south of the land of Israel, today the Negev desert), King Sichon of the Emorites and King Og of the Bashan (on the east side of the Jordan) and the first city they conquered was Jericho....
then you sort of get the idea that the Jewish people travelled from Egypt-->Sinai-->Negev-->under the Dead Sea-->East side of the Jordan.

Look at chapter 21 in the book of Numbers for a summary of their wanderings.

Erm, some people who answered you don't really know the bible. And Babylonia?? That's a couple of hundred years later...

Answer 4

Well he left there out of the Land of Goshen, in Raamses, down to Succoth, Etham, Migdol, crossed the Red Sea there at Pi-hahiroth. Down thru Elim to Sinai. That's about 600 miles.
Then they took off thru Hazoroth, to Ezion-geher. up to Kadesh and around the Wilderness of Zin, That was probably another 400 miles.
They took that hike thru Edom, up to Moab, and curved around the Dead sea before landing back in Jericho. Which was probably around 300 miles on that zig-zag of a trip.

Now this is just an educated guess, but i'm gonna say, they wandered around for about 1200-1500 hundred miles.

Answer 5

Whatever the area is between Egypt and Babylon. They only wondered in the desert for 40 years because God said they wouldn't inherit the promised land because of their transgressions. It was Joshua who finally got the go ahead. He came in from Babylon via Jericho, their first battle.

Answer 6

The Jerusalem Post had an article recently that it's a myth. They never wondered the desert for 40 years. It was written by a Rabbi.