Deuteronomy 1:19
And when we departed from Horeb, we went through all that great and terrible wilderness, which ye saw by the way of the mountain of the Amorites, as the LORD our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea. And when we departed from Horeb, we went through all that great and terrible wilderness, which ye saw by the way of the mountain of the Amorites, as the LORD our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.
The departure from Horeb through all that great and terrible wilderness to Kadesh-barnea was by the Lord's command. At Kadesh-barnea Israel stood at the threshold and on the border of the land God had given and promised them. Their coming there was joined to God's command to enter and possess the land.
Though brought to the border, the people did not wholly follow the Lord, but refused to trust God and obey Him. By the spies they discouraged the heart of Israel from going into the land the Lord had given them. The record in the first chapter explains why the adult army that left Egypt was refused entrance into the promised land. It proves that the Lord's promises are upon condition of obedience, and were changed toward Israel because of disobedience. In His anger the Lord swore that none from twenty years old and upward except Caleb and Joshua should see the land, and made Israel wander forty years until that evil generation was consumed.
This chapter with the following chapters on obedience is the word of the Lord to be read and obeyed. It was written for admonition upon those living when the ends of the world are come. It requires full surrender to the Lord's will rather than following His guidance only so far as agrees with human judgment. It requires refusing self-pleasing and human standards, and being molded in self-denial and self-sacrifice after the likeness of Christ to the Lord's standard of perfection of character.