There are eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of mount
Seir unto Kadeshbarnea.
Deut 1:2 (KJV)
Eleven days, and yet it took them forty years! How was this? Alas! we
need not travel far for the answer. It is only too like ourselves. How slowly
we get over the ground! What windings and turnings! How often we have to go
back and travel over the same ground, again and again. We are slow travelers
because we are slow learners. Our God is a faithful and wise, as well as a
gracious and patient Teacher. He will not permit us to pass cursorily over our
lessons. Sometimes, perhaps, we think we have mastered a lesson and we attempt
to move on to another, but our wise Teacher knows better, and He sees the need
of deeper ploughing. He will not have us mere theorists or smatterers; He will
keep us, if need be, year after year at our scales until we learn to sing.
–C.H.M.
