There were two parts of the world, there was Egypt with everything to minister to the flesh, and there was the wilderness; the latter equally expressing the power of Satan, but a place in which nothing can harm me if I am there with the cross, if I am walking with the heaven-side of the cross: It is a wilderness, the whole place is marred and spoiled to me, because I have to walk as Christ did. He never had a home down here. He could turn aside for a while with a little company of His own, but it was a wilderness to Him, it did not bear the stamp of His Father's heart.
One can look on the wilderness as the place formed by God for the display of Himself; Christ being hid in God.