Why the Wilderness Journeys Were Written Down in the Torah

(Numbers 33:1:) THESE ARE THE STAGES OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL. Let our master teach us: one who is pursued by a troop and by brigands, what is the law as to whether he may profane the Sabbath? Thus have our masters taught: One who was being pursued by a troop and by brigands profanes the Sabbath and saves his own life. For so we find with David: when Saul sought to kill him, he fled from before him and escaped. Our masters said: It once happened that evil documents came from the government to the leading men of Sepphoris. They came and asked Rabbi Eliezer ben Perata. They said to him: Evil documents have come to us from the government. What do you say—shall we flee? And he was afraid to tell them, "Flee on the Sabbath." He said to them: Are you asking me? Go and ask Jacob, and Moses, and David. Of Jacob it is written (Hosea 12:13): AND JACOB FLED. Of Moses it is written (Exodus 2:15): AND MOSES FLED FROM BEFORE PHARAOH. Of David it is written (1 Samuel 19:18): AND DAVID FLED AND ESCAPED. And it says (Isaiah 26:20): GO, MY PEOPLE, ENTER YOUR CHAMBERS, etc. And from where do we know that the saving of life overrides the Sabbath? As it is said (Leviticus 18:5): AND YOU SHALL KEEP MY STATUTES [AND MY ORDINANCES, WHICH IF A PERSON DO, HE SHALL] LIVE BY THEM—and not that he should die by them. And it is written concerning circumcision (Leviticus 12:3): AND ON THE EIGHTH DAY THE FLESH OF HIS FORESKIN SHALL BE CIRCUMCISED—and even on the Sabbath. And are these not matters of qal va-homer? If circumcision, which is one of the two hundred and forty-eight limbs [of a person], overrides the Sabbath, then his whole body—how much more so! The Holy One, blessed be He, said [to Israel]: My children, be careful with My commandments, and keep the Torah, for how many miracles and wonders have I done for you from the day you went out from Egypt! I cast down your enemies, and I brought you across the sea, and I cast dread and trembling upon your foes, and I destroyed the Amorite and Sihon and Og; and all the forty years that you were in the wilderness, I did not abandon you for a single hour, and how many serpents and scorpions did I kill before you, as it is said (Deuteronomy 8:15): WHO LED YOU THROUGH THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE WILDERNESS, WITH FIERY SERPENT AND SCORPION. Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: Write the journeys by which Israel traveled in the wilderness, so that they may know how many miracles I did for them at each and every journey, [from what they read in the matter] (Numbers 33:1–2): THESE ARE THE STAGES OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL... AND MOSES WROTE DOWN THEIR GOINGS-OUT BY THEIR STAGES AT THE COMMAND OF THE LORD.