In the scriptures, the wilderness is where you go to commune with God.  But it is also a frightening desolate place.  It is not a destination.

In a sense, the same with the Sabbath.  The same with mortality.

The ultimate destiny of the desert is to ‘blossom like the rose,’ i.e., to cease to be desert (deserted).  Mortality is an experiment that ends either when we fail too badly or when we succeed to well.  It is a perpetual paradox of mortality that righteousness destroys the conditions that have led to righteousness.  Success is the last and deadliest challenge to overcome.