Only a couple of verses, but how much they can teach us!
Great miracles had happened in the land of Egypt. These miracles had only taken place to make Pharaoh willing to let the people of Israel go to the Promised land. All Israelites knew this. And after the tenth plague, there was no doubt anymore: at long last they were allowed to leave and go to the ‘land flowing with milk and honey’.
There were no obstacles anymore for them to go ‘on the road through the Philistine country’. God had set them free and they knew the way; what was to stop them? But God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country…
What a miracle, what a blessing, that the Israelites allowed God to lead them! Just imagine that the promise God had given them - and their own knowledge - had been sufficient to them. Oh, they might have gotten there, but they would not have been so molded by all their trials that they would have shouted in obedience to God at the sound of the trumpet when they were at the walls of Jericho. They would – just as we are accustomed to - have deliberated on their course of action, they would have relied on their acquired knowledge and on the promises of God. But nothing would have happened at Jericho. Their self-confidence, after all the miracles in Egypt, would have stood in their way to put their trust in God and expect the deliverance from Him.
That is why God did not lead them directly to the Promised Land, but molded them through times of tribulation. Therefore, let us too not complain when the road along which God leads us is a bit longer than we find necessary.