Bible Strands
Hosea 13:5
I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Yahweh addresses Israel, speaking immediately after declaring Himself the only Savior since the Exodus and just before warning that prosperity will breed pride.
The words — יְדַעְתִּיךָ (ye.da'.Ti.kha) translates literally as "I knew you," and בַּמִּדְבָּר (ba./mid.Bar) means "in the wilderness."
The thread — This wilderness motif runs through Deuteronomy 32:10, Deuteronomy 2:7, and Deuteronomy 8:15, where God guards, blesses, and leads Israel through barren, hostile terrain.
Why it lands — It requires the reader to recognize that divine presence, not human strength, sustained Israel during their most vulnerable period, directly countering the pride and forgetfulness that follow comfort.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 32:10 He found him in a desert land, in a barren, howling wilderness; He surrounded him, He instructed him, He guarded him as the apple of His eye.
- Deuteronomy 2:7 Indeed, the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast wilderness. The LORD your God has been with you these forty years, and you have lacked nothing.
- Deuteronomy 8:15 He led you through the vast and terrifying wilderness with its venomous snakes and scorpions, a thirsty and waterless land. He brought you water from the rock of flint.
- Psalms 142:3 Although my spirit grows faint within me, You know my way. Along the path I travel they have hidden a snare for me.
- Galatians 4:9 But now that you know God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you are turning back to those weak and worthless principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?
- Exodus 2:25 God saw the Israelites and took notice.
- Psalms 63:1 A Psalm of David, when he was in the Wilderness of Judah. O God, You are my God. Earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You. My body yearns for You in a dry and weary land without water.
- Jeremiah 2:2 “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says: ‘I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.
- Nahum 1:7 The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of distress; He cares for those who trust in Him.
- Psalms 1:6 For the LORD guards the path of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.