Conceptually, the wilderness was where Israelites believed “desert demons,” including Azazel, lived. The Azazel material is especially telling, since, as I noted in our earlier discussion, Jewish practice of the Day of Atonement ritual in Jesus’ day included driving the goat “for Azazel” into the desert outside Jerusalem and pushing it over a cliff so it could not return.1 The wilderness was a place associated with the demonic, so it’s no surprise that this is where Jesus meets the devil.
