God will ship you back to Egypt by a road I promised you’d never see again. There you’ll offer yourselves for sale, both men and women, as slaves to your enemies. And not a buyer to be found.
“We’ve been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed—sold to be massacred, eliminated. If we had just been sold off into slavery, I wouldn’t even have brought it up; our troubles wouldn’t have been worth bothering the king over.”
It so happened that after Pharaoh released the people, God didn’t lead them by the road through the land of the Philistines, which was the shortest route, for God thought, “If the people encounter war, they’ll change their minds and go back to Egypt.”
In the morning you’ll say, “I wish it were evening.” In the evening you’ll say, “I wish it were morning.” Afraid, terrorized at what’s coming next, afraid of the unknown, because of the sights you’ve witnessed.
These are the terms of the Covenant that God commanded Moses to make with the People of Israel in the land of Moab, renewing the Covenant he made with them at Horeb.