By the way of the mountain of the Amorites. — Rather, in the direction of the mount. They did not pass the Mount of the Amorites, but went through the “great and terrible wilderness” from Sinai to Kadesh-barnea. So Moses says in Deuteronomy 1:20, “Ye are come unto the mount of the Amorites.”
Related Commentaries of Deuteronomy 1:19
Deuteronomy 1:19
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 Kadeshbarnea.