(place of wild beasts). Like the word desert, wilderness does not necessarily imply an absolutely arid, sandy, and uninhabitable place, but an uncultivated waste, which it was possible for pastoral tribes to occupy, and with stretches of pasturage (Josh. 15:61; Isa. 42:11). The wilderness of wandering in which the Israelites spent forty years (Deut. 1:1; Josh. 5:6; Neh. 9:19,21; Psa. 78:40-52; 107:4; Jer. 2:2), was practically the great peninsula of Sinai lying between Seir, Edom, and Gulf of Akaba on the east, and Gulf of Suez and Egypt on the west. It embraced many minor divisions or wildernesses, as those of Sin or Zin, Paran, Shur, Etham, and Sinai. [WANDERINGS.]