God led the people about. Or "led the people a circuit," i.e; made them take a circuitous route to Canaan, the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea—i.e; by the southern wilderness, or what is now called "the wilderness of Sinai."
Kalisch shows the wisdom of this course—how it gave time for the nation to be "gradually accustomed to fatigues and hardships by a long and tiresome march in the desert"—to learn obedience to their chief—and finally to be "trained to military discipline and martial, virtue by occasional expeditions against the weaker tribes of the desert."
He errs, however, in ascribing the wisdom of the course taken to Moses, since Moses expressly declares that the conception was not his, but God's. And the children of Israel went up harnessed. The word here translated "harnessed," is generally thought to mean either "with their loins girded" (Onkelos, Kimchi, Kalisch) or "in military order" (Gesenius, Lee, Knobel).
Ewald, who inclines to the latter of these two senses, suggests that, strictly, it means "in five divisions"—viz; van, centre, two wings, and rearguard. The word is, apparently, a derivative from khamesh, "five."