These days we tend to think of "roads" as smooth swaths of pavement and judge them by how fast we can drive cars on them. A "path" is something different, suitable only for walking or maybe bicycles, and a "way" has more to do with giving directions than any physical reality. When we get "lost" it usually means we're in a car on an unfamiliar road -- a far cry from being in the middle of a trackless wilderness with no idea which direction to go. The ancient world was very different, with isolated towns and endless square miles of trackless wilderness. Then a "way" was a set of landmarks to follow to get from one place to another through the wilderness. A "path" was a way used enough to leave a visible trace on the ground, and a "road" was a heavily used path, easily followed and walkable. So it makes sense that when used in the Bible, all three terms represent guiding truth, ideas that lead us where we want to go. This is pictured in the modern use of "way" -- when we talk about the "way" to do something or the "way" to get somewhere. We're talking about the correct, best, most efficient method of doing something or getting somewhere. And it's good information -- truth -- that helps us find that best way.

1929. That such things as these are meant by the statement that 'the angel of Jehovah found Hagar near a spring of water in the desert, near the spring on the road to Shur' cannot possibly be seen from the literal sense, still less when seen as an event in history; for this sense seems to be far removed from - meaning such things. Yet this is the very meaning which enters into the ideas present in the minds of angels when these descriptions are read by man. For angels have no idea in their minds of Hagar, or of a spring of water, or of a desert, or of a road, or of Shur. None of these come through to them, but perish at the threshold. It is that meant by Hagar, a spring, a desert, a road, or Shur, which they understand and from which they form heavenly ideas; and it is in this manner that they perceive the Word of the Lord, for to them the internal sense is the Word.