Nomadic tent-dweller

In September 2016, I stayed one night in a tent at Wadi Rum (Valley of the Moon, below) like a desert nomad.

About 4,000 years ago, God called a man named Abram (meaning father) to leave his homeland because He was giving him a land to possess. This man was Moses' great-great-great-great grandfather. As Abram was childless, he wondered who would inherit this land of promise. He then received a vision from God that promised him that his descendants would be as many as the stars.

However, God said they would be slaves in Egypt for 400 years and then they would come out with great possessions. God also told Abram the location of the land where he would give to his descendants. (Genesis 15).

This land is the modern-day Israel, and was referred to in ancient times as Canaan's land because it was originally given to Noah's grandson, Canaan.

When the time came for Abram's wife to become pregnant, he was already 99 years old. God renamed him Abraham (father of many).

Sixth generations after Abraham, Moses was born. By this time, his descendants had migrated to Egypt and numbered more than 2 million. They were very productive. One of Abraham's grandsons, Jacob who was later renamed Israel, had as many as 12 sons. Israel is Moses' great-great grandfather.


As the population of Israel grew,  the Egyptians became afraid of them and made them slaves. The Pharaoh of Egypt also passed a law that all boys born to the children of Israel were to be murdered by throwing them into the river. An Egyptian princess rescued Moses and he was raised as a prince, with royal education and knowledge of military organization and tactics.

When Moses was 80 years old, God appeared to him in a burning bush and instructed him to go ask the Pharaoh to let the children of Israel leave Egypt and go to the wilderness to worship Him. Here's when the spectacular miracles of the 10 plagues on Egypt and the parting of the sea happened. (More on this in Why does the church pray all night?)

Events happened at every stop on the Exodus route that leave a valuable lesson for us today.

Moses then led the children of Israel to the land that God promised He would give them. On the way there, he wrote the first 5 books of the bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, which contained many laws ranging from civil, criminal to religious. For example, Exodus 21 and 22 contain the earliest recorded law of torts (civil wrongs).

The children of Israel survived the oven weather because God miraculously provided a pillar of cloud above them by day. They survived the freezing nights because He provided a pillar of fire above them by night.

The Lord went ahead of them. He guided them during the day with a pillar of cloud, and he provided light at night with a pillar of fire. This allowed them to travel by day or by night. And the Lord did not remove the pillar of cloud or pillar of fire from its place in front of the people. (LASBNLT - Bible Text) Exodus 13:21-22

Even though the biblical story of Exodus where Moses led the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt to Canaan's land (modern day Israel) took place more than 3000 years ago, it holds lessons for us today. The bible says those things happened to instruct we who live in these end-times.(1 Corinthians 10:11)

Their story warns us that when God is taking you out of a terrible place of slavery into a wonderful unknown, getting caught in any one the following sins can lead to an untimely death!
1. Idol worship - this can be money or personal ambition
2. Sexual immorality
3. Testing God
4. Complaining

God decides who to give land to

A bedouin man is perched on the rock to the center left of the picture. Ancient people, including King David and his followers from Adullam cave would have been able to do these cliffs like monkeys.  Photo at Petra by Sim Kih

When the children of Israel headed for Edom and Moab, God warned them not to harass its inhabitants. He had given Edom to the descendants of Esau (Jacob's twin brother) and Moab to the descendants of Lot (Abraham's nephew).


All of earth belongs to God, and He gave it to the children of men. (Psalm 24:1; Psalm 115:16)

Ponies, donkeys and camels abounded at Petra. Photo by Sim Kih

Scores of bedouin were hawking trinklets to tourists. This is scary picture, because nomadic peoples have been known to corner and kidnap tourists.

Building an altar to God

What is the first thing you do, having come out of a world disaster that wiped out all everyone --- your relatives, friends, customers, suppliers, enemies...? Only you and your immediate family survived...

Altars were built in the early days to worship God.

In the story of Noah's ark, God destroyed all the inhabitants of the earth by covering it with a great flood. Noah and his immediate family were the only survivors, saved by the ark that God provided naval architectural design for. When the flood waters receded and he first came out of the ark, he built an altar to worship God.

Abraham, Jacob and Moses also built altars.


Here is the biblical account recorded in Genesis

Now God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence. God observed all this corruption in the world, for everyone on earth was corrupt. So God said to Noah, “I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they have filled the earth with violence. Yes, I will wipe them all out along with the earth!

“Build a large boat from cypress wood and waterproof it with tar, inside and out. Then construct decks and stalls throughout its interior.    Make the boat 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. Leave an 18- inch opening below the roof all the way around the boat. Put the door on the side, and build three decks inside the boat—lower, middle, and upper.

 “Look! I am about to cover the earth with a flood that will destroy every living thing that breathes. Everything on earth will die. But I will confirm my covenant with you. So enter the boat—you and your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring a pair of every kind of animal—a male and a female—into the boat with you to keep them alive during the flood. Pairs of every kind of bird, and every kind of animal, and every kind of small animal that scurries along the ground, will come to you to be kept alive. And be sure to take on board enough food for your family and for all the animals.”

So Noah did everything exactly as God had commanded him.

Genesis 6:11-22

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For forty days the floodwaters grew deeper, covering the ground and lifting the boat high above the earth. As the waters rose higher and higher above the ground, the boat floated safely on the surface. Finally, the water covered even the highest mountains on the earth, rising more than twenty- two feet above the highest peaks.

All the living things on earth died—birds, domestic animals, wild animals, small animals that scurry along the ground, and all the people. Everything that breathed and lived on dry land died. God wiped out every living thing on the earth—people, livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and the birds of the sky. All were destroyed.

The only people who survived were Noah and those with him in the boat. And the floodwaters covered the earth for 150 days.

Genesis 7:17-24
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On the first day of the new year, ten and a half months after the flood began, the floodwaters had almost dried up from the earth. Noah lifted back the covering of the boat and saw that the surface of the ground was drying. Two more months went by, and at last the earth was dry!

Then God said to Noah, “Leave the boat, all of you—you and your wife, and your sons and their wives. Release all the animals—the birds, the livestock, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—so they can be fruitful and multiply throughout the earth.”

So Noah, his wife, and his sons and their wives left the boat. And all of the large and small animals and birds came out of the boat, pair by pair.

Genesis 8:13-18
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Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and there he sacrificed as burnt offerings the animals and birds that had been approved for that purpose.

And the Lord was pleased with the aroma of the sacrifice and said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood. I will never again destroy all living things. As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.”

Genesis 8:20-22

Cross-over to the next stage of life

Here am I on Mount Nebo in September 2014, where God showed Moses the promised land. It is the highest point (about 800 meters above sea level) on the Abarim mountain range, across the Jordan river facing Israel.

Moses died on Mount Nebo at 120 years of age after God showed him the promised land. Mount Nebo is across the Jordan river facing the ancient site of Jericho, the city where the children of Israel entered Canaan's land. After crossing the Jordan river, their economic position of being nomads who struggled with fears of thirst and hunger changed into that of being agricultural land-owners, and Canaan's land became Israeli land.

In this place, it is therefore especially meaningful to pray about transitions, whether it is from one stage of our personal life to the next, or the cross-over of the human race from this current age to the next.

The name of this mountain range, עברים Abarim, is a plural form of the Hebrew root עבר (abar), meaning to pass over, by, through.

After the children of Israel invaded and destroyed the inhabitants of Canaan's land, the second generation leader, Joshua, built an altar to the Lord. As the Israelites watched, he copied onto the altar stones Moses' instruction. (Joshua 8)

The law of Moses was all the more relevant in the context of the destructive Canaanite practices in that age. 

Why did God command Israel to destroy the inhabitants of Canaan?

In September 2014, the Cathedral of Glory pastor brought us up this mountain for All Night Prayer and altar building. (Video of an altar building that I was part of)

During day time, it can be as hot as 35 degrees Celsius. After midnight, the temperature fell to lower than 15 degrees Celsius. On one such All Night Prayer at the Asklepion (in Turkey where Hippocrates began the scientific approach to western medicine), I was so cold that my mind went blank and the only thing I could pray was: I'm very cold.

Why does the church pray all night?