The Desert Where God Speaks

Every Hebrew word has a root—usually three letters—that carries its essential meaning. From that root, all the related words grow like branches from the same tree. In Hebrew, the root is like a map that guides you to understand new words by their relationship to what you already know.

For example, the root כתב (k-t-v) means “to write.” From it we get:

• כָּתַב (katav) — he wrote (something you do yourself)

• הִכְתִּיב (hichtiv) — he dictated (causing another to write)

• הִתְכַּתֵּב (hitkatev) — he corresponded (writing to each other)

In English, “write,” “dictate,” and “correspond” look nothing alike. You just have to memorize them. But in Hebrew, you can see their relationship—the same root, expressed in different directions. Even if you’ve never seen the word “correspond,” you’d instantly know what it means: to write to one another—by the prefix -הת (hit-).

The same happens with אָכַל (achal, “to eat”) and הֶאֱכִיל (he’echil, “to feed”)—same root, but one form is what you do for yourself, the other what you do for someone else. Hebrew doesn’t just label things; it shows how they relate.

And that brings us to one of my favorite examples.

FROM דָּבָר (DAVAR) TO מִדְבָּר (MIDBAR)

The word דָּבָר (davar) means “word or thing.” Its root is ד-ב-ר (d-b-r), “to speak.” But from that same root, we get מִדְבָּר (midbar)—the “desert or wilderness.”

At first, that seems odd. What could “speech” have to do with “desert”? The midbar is empty and silent! But Hebrew reveals something deeper.

The prefix מ־ (mem) often turns a verb into a noun of place—“the place where something happens.”

• From zavach (זבח, to sacrifice) comes מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbeach), the place of sacrifice (altar).

• From shachan (שכן, to dwell) comes מִשְׁכָּן (mishkan), the place of dwelling (tabernacle).

• From kadash (קדש, to be holy) comes מִקְדָּשׁ (mikdash), the place of holiness (sanctuary).

So what is midbar? It is literally “the place of speaking.”

The desert, in God’s language, is not the place of silence—it’s the place where the Word is heard.

WHEN GOD LEADS US INTO THE DESERT

In Scripture, that’s exactly where God speaks. Israel didn’t receive the Torah in Egypt’s chaos or Canaan’s comfort, but in the desert of Sinai. There, with no distractions and no self-sufficiency, they heard His voice.

The prophets echo this. God says in Hosea, “I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.” Elijah, too, met God in the desert—not in the wind, earthquake, or fire, but in a still, small voice.

The midbar is not a place where God is absent. It’s where His voice becomes clear.

LIVING ON THE EDGE OF THE MIDBAR

I live on Israel’s southern coast, in Ashkelon. It’s not desert, but the edge of it. Drive inland for an hour and the land begins to change—the green coastal plain fades to rocky hills, and beyond Be’er Sheva the Negev opens up wide and wild. Keep going, and you reach the cliffs of Mitzpe Ramon (the most beautiful part of Israel that tourists rarely see—Google it), where the earth drops away into a vast, silent sea of sand and stone.

And yes, Mitzpe is another one of those “mem” words—from the root צ-פ-ה (tz-p-h), to “look or observe.” By adding a מ (mem), we get מִצְפֶּה (mitzpeh), “the place of looking out,” or watchtower, lookout, observatory.

I love driving through that landscape. The farther you go, the quieter it gets. The air feels lighter, thinner. There’s nothing man-made to fill the senses—no noise, no clutter—just the sound of the wind and the whisper of your own thoughts.

It’s in that emptiness that something happens inside me. The silence begins to speak. It’s as though creation itself is holding its breath, waiting for the Word of the Lord. And there, in that stillness, I hear Him more clearly.

YESHUA, THE DESERT FATHERS, AND THE INNER WILDERNESS

Yeshua knew this too. After His baptism, the Spirit did not lead Him to a five-star hotel for His forty-day fast, but into the midbar. There in the desert (m-d-b-r), He faced temptation and overcame with the davar (d-b-r)—the Word—of God.

Centuries later, the Desert Fathers and Mothers of Egypt, Israel, and Syria followed that same path. In the 3rd to 5th centuries, they left the noise of the Roman world to seek God in silence. To some, they seemed to flee—but really, they were returning. Back to the midbar, the place where God still speaks.

They discovered what Israel, Elijah, and Yeshua all knew: when the world is loud, the soul grows deaf. The cure isn’t more noise—it’s holy quiet. The desert becomes a doorway to hearing God again.

In 2022, I learned this lesson the hard way. I worked from the time I woke up until around 9 PM. I was getting my master’s degree while juggling several ministry jobs, thinking I was a pretty big deal—until I crashed. That’s where I learned the joy of solitude. I don’t have to work all the time. It’s okay to be quiet. It’s okay not to achieve. That’s when I discovered the Desert Fathers—men and women who fled the noise to find communion with the Father in stillness.

FASTING AND THE DESERT WITHIN

There’s also an inner desert—the one we create when we fast.

Fasting turns the body into a kind of midbar—a landscape emptied of comfort and abundance. It’s not something we can sustain for long, but for a time it opens our spirits to hear more clearly. Our stomachs grow quiet so our hearts can listen.

When we fast, we are saying, “Lord, I need Your Word more than bread.” We make room for His voice by clearing away everything else.

THE INVITATION OF THE MIDBAR

Whether I’m driving through the Negev or walking the quiet streets of Ashkelon at dawn, I feel the same truth: the midbar—the place of barrenness—is also the place of speaking.

Sometimes God leads us into the desert not to punish us, but to speak to us.

When everything else is stripped away, when we stop trying to fill the silence, that’s when the davar—the Word of God—begins to rise in our spirits.

So if you find yourself in a desert season—if life feels dry or silent—don’t be afraid. The desert is where the Word is born.

It’s the midbar, the place of speaking.

And the One who spoke the world into existence still speaks there today.