Deuteronomy 1:11, commentary and pictures

Moses uttered a blessing that the Lord God of their fathers would make Israel a thousand times more numerous than they then were and would bless them just as He had promised them. The blessing looked backward to what God had already done in greatly multiplying Israel until they were as the stars, and forward in desiring a thousandfold further increase joined to blessing according to promise to the fathers. It was spoken as part of his explanation that the people had grown so large that he was unable by himself to carry their burdens and settle their disputes.

Because of that growth he set over them leaders distinguished as wise and understanding and respected among the tribes to act as judges. This arrangement belonged to his account of how he ordered the leadership of Israel and of the people's agreement to follow what he had set in place. The verse stands within that history of experiences and failures and victories which he was charged to rehearse before Israel as they were about to enter the land and take possession of Jericho.

The increase and blessing thus promised were conditional upon obedience, and the opening chapter demonstrates the condition by explaining why the Lord would not bring the adult army generation that came out of Egypt into the promised land. Through rebellion and disobedience that generation forfeited the promised blessing. They did not wholly follow God but discouraged others from going into the land He had given them, so they were consumed in forty years of wandering and only their children, together with Caleb and Joshua, would enter.

The chapter in which the blessing occurs conveys the Lord's own words to be read and heeded, making known His will and His standard of perfection of character after Christ's example of self-denial and self-sacrifice. It calls for entire submission to His guidance and for being molded into His likeness, instead of following human judgment only so far as it agrees with self and living to please self. It was written as admonition for those upon whom the ends of the world are come. The people afterward violated their agreement by rebellion and murmuring and disobedience, proving that obedience to God's directions and cooperation with His plans are essential to present and future good and to eternal welfare.