Deuteronomy 1:2 (There are eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir unto Kadesh-barnea.
Have you ever taken a trip that just seemed to never end? Sometimes you can be going to a place you don’t really wish to go, so the trip just seems to go on forever. Other times you are so eager to get where you are going, grandma’s house, vacation, or whatever, that you feel like you are never going to get there. I have found that if I get a late start in the morning on any kind of trip, whether it is long or short, the whole day just seems to drag. If I get a fresh, early start, the whole day just seems to go swimmingly well no matter the length of my trip.
At any rate, in Deuteronomy 1 God is looking back to the journeys of Israel and looking ahead to the land of Canaan. He does this through Moses. Verse 1 says, “These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness.” So, God Himself, Jehovah, is speaking through Moses, His man, to His people Israel. Then, in verse 2 it parenthetically says, “(There are eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir unto Kadesh-barnea.)” Then, verse 3 is a stark contrast, “It came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spake unto the children of Israel, according unto all that the LORD had given him in commandment unto them.”
So, here is God speaking to these people through Moses as they are about to come to the very borders of the land of Canaan, the land God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the sons, the tribes, the children, then nation of Israel. There is a very stark and profound, though subtly given, contrast here. The contrast is between an eleven-day journey and forty years of wandering. In other words, these people turned an eleven-day trip into forty years of wandering. How in the world does one do that? Is it because you miss the right truck stop? Is it because you get a late start? Is it because you run out of gas? Is it because you are going too slowly? What is the deal here?
At the very start of Deuteronomy, we are reminded that the way to turn an eleven-day journey into forty years of wandering is to disregard and disobey God, to follow what you want and what you can see.What I want cannot be trusted and what I can see is nothing compared to what God knows.
Verse 30 says, “The LORD your God which goeth before you, he shall fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes.” These people were wandering because they were complaining. They were complaining because they were worried. They were worried because they had their eyes on the giants, the walls, and the difficulties instead of the commandment of God. God gave them a command to go in and possess the land that He had promised. Instead of going to see how they should go about obeying God, they went and decided they could not obey God. They forgot that God would go before them just as He did in Egypt. These people had experienced God parting the Red Sea. The God who parted the Red Sea would part the Jordan River. The God who gave them deliverance from Egypt would give them freedom in Canaan. The God who had defeated Pharaoh and his gods would be sufficient for the days ahead, but they did not believe that and disobeyed God.
Verses 31-33 say, “And in the wilderness, where thou hast seen how that the LORD thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son, in all the way that ye went, until ye came into this place. Yet in this thing ye did not believe the LORD your God, who went in the way before you.” So, disbelief or unbelief was the same as disobedience. We can glean from this that you will either learn or lose in life. Either you learn from the mistakes of the past, both yours and others, or you are destined to repeat them.
In verse 39, Moses says to the children of Israel, “Moreover your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither, and unto them will I give it, and they shall possess it.” God is saying, “Look, your little kids, who are too young to understand right from wrong and who you said would be a prey to the enemy, are the ones who will go in and possess this land. I will give it to them.” So, you either learn or lose from life.
Have you ever made mistakes? Of course, you have. Have your learned from those? Has God ever provided for you in the past? Most certainly He has. It is wonderful to learn from experience. It is usually preferable to learn from someone else’s. So much of the Bible is just that; it is learning from the experience of others. The New Testament tells us that these people were examples to us that we should not want or go after wrong things but should want to follow, obey, and trust the Lord.
The God who has helped in the past is certainly sufficient for the future. No one wants to waste their life. No one would intentionally want to waste the precious time, energy, and life that God has granted, yet we turn things that could be very simple into a long, drawn-out trudge when we do not obey God and trust Him for what He knows, sees, and can do. The way to turn an eleven-day journey into a forty-year wandering is to neglect God, to trust yourself, and refuse to learn from mistakes and experience. So, learn from what God has said and let your life be an example of that.