How can I myself alone bear your cumbrance, and your burden, and your strife?
The cumbrance, burden, and strife are the people's concerns, needs, responsibilities, disputes, and cases involved in leading and governing Israel. Moses could not bear this work alone because the people had grown very numerous, as numerous as the stars, and the demands of hearing their cases required shared leadership through capable helpers. The verse therefore leads into appointing wise, understanding, recognized, and trusted men as rulers, judges, and helpers to share the responsibility and hear and judge the people's causes fairly.
The chapter to which the verse belongs explains why the adult generation of the army that left Egypt was refused entrance into the promised land, as part of the account of Israel's rebellion and its consequences. God's promises are upon condition of obedience, so disobedience brings an altering of His purpose so that entrance is withheld. That refusal came because they failed to trust and wholly follow God, bringing forty years of wilderness wandering. The people had agreed to the plan for shared leadership, yet later complained against Moses and rebelled, showing that obedience and cooperation with God's directions are necessary for their good and eternal welfare.
The words of chapters 1 and 8, including this verse, are written for admonition for those living at the ends of the world. They call them not to follow their own judgment only up to a point and then cling to their own ideas. They call them instead to give up self-pleasing human standards and be molded after Christ's likeness in self-denial and self-sacrifice to meet the Lord's standard of perfection of character.
The cumbrance, burden, and strife are the people's concerns, needs, responsibilities, disputes, and cases involved in leading and governing Israel. Moses could not bear this work alone because the people had grown very numerous, as numerous as the stars, and the demands of hearing their cases required shared leadership through capable helpers. The verse therefore leads into appointing wise, understanding, recognized, and trusted men as rulers, judges, and helpers to share the responsibility and hear and judge the people's causes fairly.
The chapter to which the verse belongs explains why the adult generation of the army that left Egypt was refused entrance into the promised land, as part of the account of Israel's rebellion and its consequences. God's promises are upon condition of obedience, so disobedience brings an altering of His purpose so that entrance is withheld. That refusal came because they failed to trust and wholly follow God, bringing forty years of wilderness wandering. The people had agreed to the plan for shared leadership, yet later complained against Moses and rebelled, showing that obedience and cooperation with God's directions are necessary for their good and eternal welfare.
The words of chapters 1 and 8, including this verse, are written for admonition for those living at the ends of the world. They call them not to follow their own judgment only up to a point and then cling to their own ideas. They call them instead to give up self-pleasing human standards and be molded after Christ's likeness in self-denial and self-sacrifice to meet the Lord's standard of perfection of character.