The wilderness is a place of little water and therefore of little food supply. It is also a land of serpents and scorpions (Deuteronomy 8:15). The resulting hardship prevents a self-sustaining civilization and drives you to look beyond yourself for your daily sustenance. Israel experienced this acutely (Exodus 16:1–13). But precisely in that dry and hungry land the Lord nourished Israel richly with manna (Exodus 16:14–21; Deuteronomy 8:3, Deuteronomy 8:16). That is the assurance the Lord had given this woman too for her time in the wilderness (Revelation 12:6).
14 But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time.