פרשת בשלח תשי"ג - יציאת מצרים

Stand and see the deliverance of the Lord: Since you will not make war on Egypt. Rather you will see the deliverance of the Lord that He will do for you today. One may wonder how [such] a large camp of six hundred thousand men would be afraid of those pursing after them. And why did they not fight for their lives and for their children? The answer is that the Egyptians were the Israelites' masters. And [so] this generation that went out of Egypt learned from its youth to tolerate the yoke of Egypt and had a lowly image. And [so] how could they now battle with their masters? And Israel was [also] indolent and not trained in warfare. Do you not see that Amalek came with [only] a small group and were it not for the prayer of Moshe, they would have overpowered Israel. And the only God, 'who does great things' and 'for whom all plots are contemplated,' caused that all the males of the people that went out of Egypt would die. As there was no strength in them to fight against the Canaanites, until a new generation, after the generation of the desert, arose. And they did not see exile and they had a [confident] spirit, as I mentioned in the words about Moshe in the Parsha of Eleh Shemot (Ibn Ezra on Exodus 2:3).

And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not by the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said: 'Lest the people regret when they see war, and they return to Egypt.’

כי קרוב הוא BECAUSE IT WAS NEAR, and it would therefore be easy to return by the same route to Egypt. — Of Midrashic explanations there are many (cf. Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 13:17).

ויהי בשלח פרעה את העם, when G’d intended to bring them to the land of Canaan, but did not want to lead them through the land of the Philistines although it was the closest route, כי קרוב הוא, and G’d feared that when faced with the need to conduct battles they would appoint an alternate leader in order to return to Egypt and submit to the Egyptians. We know that the Israelites tried to do this several times whenever they felt frustrated. (Examples are Numbers 14,3, Numbers 11,5) The disgruntled Israelites on such occasions “suddenly remembered” how good they had it in Egypt, citing the fish they ate for free, etc., as examples of their having been better off in Egypt. In light of what happened, although the Israelites did not have to face the armed might of the Philistines, G’d’s foresight in not leading them on that route seems extremely understandable. As a result of such considerations we find ויסב את העם דרך המדבר, that G’d made the Israelites take a much longer route in the direction of the Sea of Reeds. Moses described that had the Israelites traveled a straight path from their point of departure the whole journey would not have required more than 11 days. (Deuteronomy 1,2). Proof that the route to Egypt via the land of the Philistines is the shortest and most traveled route is furnished by Yitzchok’s declared intention to move to Egypt on account of the famine in the land of Canaan if G’d had not ordered him to stay in that land and he settled in the land of the Philistines while already on the way to Egypt (Genesis 26,3-6).

But God led the people about, by the way of the wilderness by the Red Sea; and the children of Israel went up armed out of the land of Egypt.