“These are the journeys” – this is analogous to a king whose son was ill. He took him to a certain place to cure him. When they returned, his father began enumerating all of the journeys, and says: Here we slept, here we cooled ourselves, here you had a headache. So the Holy One blessed be He said to Moses: Enumerate all the places where they angered Me. That is why it is stated: “These are the journeys.”
“These are the journeys” – why did all these journeys merit to be written in the Torah? It is because they3The destinations. received Israel, and the Holy One blessed be He is destined to give their reward, as it is written: “Wilderness and wasteland will be glad; the desert will rejoice and blossom like the lily. It will blossom and rejoice…” (Isaiah 35:1–2). If it is so for the wilderness because it received Israel, for one who receives Torah scholars in his home, all the more so. You find that the wilderness is destined to become a settlement, and the settlement is destined to become wilderness. From where is it derived that the settlement is destined to become wilderness? It is as it is stated: “But I hated Esau, and I rendered his mountains desolation” (Malachi 1:3). From where is it derived that the wilderness is destined to become a settlement? It is as it is stated: “I will render the wilderness a pond of water” (Isaiah 41:18). You find that now there are no trees in the wilderness, but they are destined to be there, as it is stated: “I will put cedar, acacia, myrtle and [pine] trees in the wilderness” (Isaiah 41:19). Now there is no path in the wilderness, as it is all sand, but there is destined to be a path there, as it is stated: “I will place a path in the wilderness, rivers in the desert” (Isaiah 43:19). And it says: “There will be a way and a path, and it will be called the path of holiness; the impure will not cross it. It is for them; wayfarers and fools will not go astray” (Isaiah 35:8).