Exodus 13:17
And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt:
When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by the near, short, direct way through the land of the Philistines, although that was near, but led them around by the longer wilderness route south toward the Red Sea where they would meet less opposition from armies. Jesus Christ, enshrouded in the pillar of cloud, was their leader in choosing that route. The stated reason is lest the people repent when they see war, losing heart and becoming afraid and changing their minds and returning to Egypt.
The Philistines would have opposed Israel's passage and made war on them, so the longer route spared Israel from an early conflict. They would have regarded the Israelites as fugitives escaping their rightful masters. The people were unprepared and unready for war.
Their long bondage had left them with little knowledge of God and little faith, and they were unarmed, untrained, discouraged, and traveling with their families and herds. They had not learned warfare because the Egyptians had kept them from joining their armies, fearing they might revolt and escape, an oppression and hatred like that of Southern slave-masters. In this leading God showed Himself compassionate as well as a God of judgment.
God still ordered events so that Pharaoh would pursue Israel and He would be honored before Pharaoh and his host. Bringing Israel into the wilderness separated them from Egypt's influence and gave them opportunity to know God and Christ and learn obedience to their divine Leader. That wilderness discipline was necessary to shape them into God's distinct people, without which they would have become like the Egyptians, and their life was to serve as a public witness to all nations of God's will as the power that governs His people.
God leads His people forward on to Canaan and not back toward Egypt. Restoring arbitrary centralized authority over all the publishing houses, placing the work on a basis where one man has kingly authority in Battle Creek or in any other place and becomes a controlling ruling power with jurisdiction over the entire field to turn the wheel, is going back toward Egypt instead of on to Canaan. That backward change is forbidden by God, brings blindness as to results, and takes His people back to where they must wrestle again with the same difficulties of the past.