Desert to Israel, fruitful for the nations

God is a wilderness to no one when he 'makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good.' He is untilled land to no one when he 'sends rain on the just and on the unjust.' How is he a wilderness when he makes day and night for rest? How a wilderness when he makes the earth bear fruit? How a wilderness when he orders each person for the soul — that he may be rational, that he may take up knowledge, that his understanding may be exercised in the body, that he may have sound 'senses'? So as to the general account, God is a wilderness to no one. As to the particular account I come to Israel's affairs, and I say: he was neither wilderness nor untilled land when in Egypt he did the signs and wonders for the people. But if there was ever a time when they were left behind, he became, as it were, a wilderness to them — though he himself is not a wilderness.

Yet when he was not a wilderness to Israel and not an untilled land, to the nations, on the particular account, he was a wilderness and an untilled land. But when he turned away from Israel and became to that Israel a wilderness and an untilled land, then grace was poured out on the nations, and Christ Jesus has become to us not a wilderness but full, not untilled land but fruit-bearing. For 'many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband.' And he threatens those to whom he was not a wilderness and not untilled land, saying: I for my part have not become a 'wilderness' to you, nor an 'untilled land,' but you have said, 'We will not be ruled; we will not come to you any longer.' Have the sons of Israel said in their despair, according to the letter, 'We will not be ruled'?