Israelites needed to be reminded of the dark side of cosmic geography too. If the Israelite camp, and later the nation of Israel, was holy ground, the home of God and his people, then the terrain outside Israel was unholy ground. God had, long before Sinai, forsaken the other nations and given them over to lesser gods (Deut. 4:19–20; 32:8–9). He would one day reclaim the nations, but during biblical days, they were realms of darkness.
