Wilderness years

What I don't remember reading previously is that Moses was said to have kept a record of the journey The NLT has it like this in chapter 33 of Numbers (many verses elided for brevity). Note the wilderness and desert references. It was no picnic.

Sinai Desert

Remembering Israel’s Journey       

33 This is the route the Israelites followed as they marched out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. 2 At the Lord’s direction, Moses kept a written record of their progress. These are the stages of their march, identified by the different places where they stopped along the way.

3 They set out from the city of Rameses in early spring—on the fifteenth day of the first month—on the morning after the first Passover celebration. The people of Israel left defiantly, in full view of all the Egyptians.

 After leaving Rameses, the Israelites set up camp at Succoth.

6 Then they left Succoth and camped at Etham on the edge of the wilderness.

.....crossed the Red Sea into the wilderness beyond. Then they travelled for three days into the Etham wilderness ...

9 They left Marah and camped at Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees.

10 They left Elim and camped beside the Red Sea. 

11 ....left the Red Sea and camped in the wilderness of Sin. ...

14 ... camped at Rephidim, where there was no water for the people to drink.

15 They left Rephidim and camped in the wilderness of Sinai...

36 They left Ezion-geber and camped at Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin...

38 While they were at the foot of Mount Hor, Aaron the priest was directed by the Lord to go up the mountain, and there he died. This happened in midsummer, on the first day of the fifth month of the fortieth year after Israel’s departure from Egypt. 39 Aaron was 123 years old when he died there on Mount Hor.

40 At that time the Canaanite king of Arad, who lived in the Negev in the land of Canaan, heard that the people of Israel were approaching his land...

48 They left the mountains east of the river and camped on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho. 

50 While they were camped near the Jordan River on the plains of Moab opposite Jericho, the Lord said to Moses, 51 ... 53 Take possession of the land and settle in it, because I have given it to you to occupy...

What does this mean for you and me and everyone today in 2020? 

Wilderness. Loneliness; doubt; darkness. Spontaneity of thought and idea; the vestibule in which a material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great facts of existence. (Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 597)

Julie Swannell