Deuteronomy 1:15

1:9-18 Moses reminds the people of the happy constitution of their government, which might make them all safe and easy, if it was not their own fault. He owns the fulfilment of God's promise to Abraham, and prays for the further accomplishment of it. We are not straitened in the power and goodness of God; why should we be straitened in our own faith and hope? Good laws were given to the Israelites, and good men were to see to the execution of them, which showed God's goodness to them, and the care of Moses.

So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known,.... The principal persons among them, that were remarkable and well known for their wisdom and understanding, whom the people presented to him: and made them heads over you; rulers of them, as follows: captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens; see Exodus 18:21. and officers among your tribes; which Jarchi interprets of such that bind malefactors and scourge them, according to the decree of the judges, even the executioners of justice; and so the Jews commonly understand them to be, though some have thought they were judges also.

So I took the chief of your tribes, {l} wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes. (l) Declaring what sort of men ought to have a public charge, read Ex 18:21.

This appointment of the "captains" (compare Exodus 18:21 ff) must not be confounded with that of the elders in Numbers 11:16 ff. The former would number 78,600; the latter were 70 only. A comparison between this passage and that in Exodus makes it obvious that Moses is only touching on certain parts of the whole history, without regard to order of time, but with a special purpose. This important arrangement for the good government of the people took place before they left Horeb to march direct to the promised land. This fact sets more clearly before us the perverseness and ingratitude of the people, to which the orator next passes; and shows, what he was anxious to impress, that the fault of the 40 years' delay rested only with themselves!

10. ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude—This was neither an Oriental hyperbole nor a mere empty boast. Abraham was told (Ge 15:5, 6) to look to the stars, and though they "appear" innumerable, yet those seen by the naked eye amount, in reality, to no more than three thousand ten in both hemispheres. The Israelites already far exceeded that number, being at the last census above six hundred thousand [Nu 26:51]. It was a seasonable memento, calculated to animate their faith in the accomplishment of other parts of the divine promise.

15 . the heads of your tribes ] LXX, from you , either represents the original Heb. reading or is the Gk translator’s emendation of a difficult text. On the ground that the present Heb. reading conflicts with Deuteronomy 1:13 and is meaningless in relation to the rest of this verse (it being unlikely that Moses would say, that he took heads of tribes to make them heads over you), some would delete the words. But the verse, though awkward, may mean that Moses took those elected within the various tribes ( Deuteronomy 1:13 ) and made them chiefs with judicial functions in the new national organisation which he now instituted: so in E, Exodus 18:25 , he set them chiefs over the people , as a whole. captains of thousands, hundreds, fifties, tens ] Captains , Heb. sarîm . So E, Exodus 18:21 ; Exodus 18:25 . But neither there nor here is the meaning clear. Under the monarchy there were military sarîm of thousands, hundreds, and fifties ( 1 Samuel 8:12 ; 1 Samuel 17:18 ; 2 Samuel 18:1 ; 2 Kings 1:9 ff; 2 Kings 11:4 ; Isaiah 3:3 ); that no sarîm of tens are mentioned does not imply that they did not exist, for the notices of the others are incidental. Did such military sarîm already exist in the time of Israel’s wanderings, and is it meant, here and in Exodus 18, that the popularly elected heads took such military titles on their appointment?

Or were these military ranks first instituted under the monarchy, when an organised national army took the place of the old tribal levies, and have the writers of E and D (cp. P, Numbers 31:14 ; Numbers 31:28 ) merely reflected this institution of their own times back on the period of the wandering? Or are we to hold with Steuernagel that although Exodus 18:13-26 deals throughout with the institution of judges this deuteronomic review, Deuteronomy 1:9-15 , narrates the appointment not of judges but of military and administrative officers and that we reach the judges only in Deuteronomy 1:16 , where their title first occurs and where a new paragraph is indicated by the recurrence of the formula, and at that time ? In support of his view, Steuernagel alleges that only intellectual qualities are required for the officers dealt with in Deuteronomy 1:9-15 , while in Exodus 18:13 ff., where judges are intended throughout, the requirements are moral. But this point we have already answered above on Deuteronomy 1:13 . Further Steuernagel’s explanation neither solves the difficulty in Exodus 18:13 ff. (E) where the equation of military titles with the judicial posts is certain; nor meets the fact that this deuteronomic review is based on Exodus 18:13 ff., and if it had meant to differ from the latter on so substantial a point it would certainly have indicated the difference explicitly. None of the explanations is satisfactory.

לכם הבוּ, give here, provide for yourselves. The congregation was to nominate, according to its tribes, wise, intelligent, and well-known men, whom Moses would appoint as heads, i.e., as judges, over the nation. At their installation he gave them the requisite instructions ( Deuteronomy 1:16 ): "Ye shall hear between your brethren," i.e., hear both parties as mediators, "and judge righteously, without respect of person." פּנים הכּיר, to look at the face, equivalent to פּנים נשׁא ( Leviticus 19:15 ), i.e., to act partially (cf. Exodus 23:2-3 ). "The judgment is God's," i.e., appointed by God, and to be administered in the name of God, or in accordance with His justice; hence the expression "to bring before God" ( Exodus 21:6 ; Exodus 22:7 , etc.). On the difficult cases which the judges were to bring before Moses, see at Exodus 18:26 .

[Bible] Deuteronomy Chapter 1 A repetition of what passed at Sinai and Cadesbarne: and of the people's murmuring and their punishment. 1:1. These are the words, which Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan, in the plain wilderness, over against the Red Sea, between Pharan and Thophel and Laban and Haseroth, where there is very much gold. 1:2. Eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir to Cadesbarne. 1:3. In the fortieth year, the eleventh month, the first day of the month, Moses spoke to the children of Israel all that the Lord had commanded him to say to them: 1:4. After that he had slain Sehon king of the Amorrhites, who dwelt in Hesebon: and Og king of Basan who abode in Astaroth, and in Edrai, 1:5. Beyond the Jordan in the land of Moab. And Moses began to expound the law, and to say: 1:6. The Lord our God spoke to us in Horeb, saying: You have stayed long enough in this mountain: 1:7. Turn you, and come to the mountain of the Amorrhites, and to the other places that are next to it, the plains and the hills and the vales towards the south, and by the sea shore, the land of the Chanaanites, and of Libanus, as far as the great river Euphrates. 1:8. Behold, said he, I have delivered it to you: go in and possess it, concerning which the Lord swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he would give it to them, and to their seed after them. 1:9. And I said to you at that time: 1:10. I alone am not able to bear you: for the Lord your God hath multiplied you, and you are this day as the stars of heaven, for multitude. 1:11. (The Lord God of your fathers add to this number many thousands, and bless you as he hath spoken.) 1:12. I alone am not able to bear your business, and the charge of you and your differences. 1:13. Let me have from among you wise and understanding men, and such whose conversation is approved among your tribes, that I may appoint them your rulers. 1:14. Then you answered me: The thing is good which thou meanest to do.