Deuteronomy 1:9-12 (ESV)
"At that time I said to you, ''I am not able to bear you by myself. [10] The LORD your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are today as numerous as the stars of heaven. [11] May the LORD, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you, as he has promised you! [12] How can I bear by myself the weight and burden of you and your strife?
At that time. The time was when Jethro, Moses' father in law, gave the advice to Moses, right before Israel had reached Mount Sinai. So Moses is not speaking of the time when Moses appointed the 70 elders, which happened after Israel left Sinai, but the appointment of the captains to be judges of Israel, which was after the water from the rock in Rephidim and defeating of the Amelekites, events before Israel entered into wilderness of Sinai.
Why Moses is including this event, which happened before leaving Mount Sinai, is to show Israel how wicked they were in refusing to believe in God's promise that they would inherit the land, when His promise to Abraham of increased population was being fulfilled in them before their eyes. For read what God had said to Issac in confirming His promise to Abraham:
Genesis 26:4-5 (ESV)
I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, [5] because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws."
Moses was saying here that the first part of this promise, that Abraham's offspring will be as the stars of heaven, was now fulfilled, Israel having gone from only 70 people when Jacob came with his house to Egypt, to be about 600,000 at time of Exodus. God has and was continuing to fulfill this promise right before them.
Moses is saying, 'If God has fulfilled this promise that He made to Abraham, why did the first generation that came out from Egypt believe not in the promise that they will conquer the land?' The first generation had all the evidence to believe that God was with them and that very same God who blessed them with increased population was willing to give them the promised land. They were therefore doubly condemned for their unbelief, for they clearly saw God's hand working. And Moses is worried that this second generation may follow after the unbelief of their fathers. Particularly, he is worried that they will believe not in the God's third promise to Abraham, the promise of the Messiah, through whom all the nations of the world would be blessed.
I am not able to bear you by myself. God had blessed Israel with blessings more than Moses could bear. God had blessed them so much, that they had multiplied as the stars of heaven, and thus they became unbearable for Moses to carry by himself. Firstly, this shows how God blesses His people. Moses surely could not handle Israel's blessedness; they expanded beyond his hands and control. Has not God blessed us His children with unbearable blessings? God makes our cup to overflow; He makes who are dying of thirst to have rivers of living water to flow from their hearts. Christ broke 2 pieces of bread and fed 5000 people to have 12 full baskets leftover. He always gives us unbearable, abundant blessings.
Grace is the unbearable blessing that turned our hearts over to Jesus Christ forever. When we were in the darkness of our sins, guilt and condemnation, light of the Gospel of Jesus appeared to our hearts, blinding the eyes of our heart with His glory. When we saw that God Himself became a man and had died for the sins - that we had committed against Him - it became an unbearable blessing that overflowed from our hearts. The gift of everlasting life that was given to a filthy sinners like us was inexpressible, unknowable and it was more joy than our heart could bear.
The blessings that God gave us in Christ overflowed from us, and had to be shared with people around us. That is what happens when we have unbearable blessings. Just as the Spirit of Christ overflowed from Moses to the numerous judges, when we have overflowing grace, it flows to others. Just as prophet Jeremiah said:
Jeremiah 20:9 (ESV)
If I say, "I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name," there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.
Prophet Jeremiah felt like the word of God was boiling up like a fire inside His heart that would break all his bones and burst forth if he did not open his mouth. If the prophet felt like this for a message about one nation's fall to Babylon, how much must we feel about the message of eternal judgment that is to come upon the WORLD? If Jeremiah felt like this of a message of condemnation, how much more must our Good News of God's grace and salvation burn in us like a fire in our hearts, waiting to be shared to others?
How can I bear by myself the weight and burden of you and your strife? Moses particularly could not bear the people of Israel alone because he could not bear their sin. Along with numerous blessings also came a multitude of sins, through thanklessness and complacence. Moses, before Jethro gave the advice, spent the whole day until evening listening to people's strife. He alone was the judge. He heard all Israelites' complaining, fighting, bitterness, etc. He alone could not handle this terrible weight of sin. In fact, it repulsed him so much that later he even disowns Israelites when the burden is about to crush him:
Numbers 11:11-15 (ESV)
Moses said to the LORD, "Why have you dealt ill with your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? [12] Did I conceive all this people? Did I give them birth, that you should say to me, ''Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child,'' to the land that you swore to give their fathers? [13] Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me and say, ''Give us meat, that we may eat.'' [14] I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me. [15] If you will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness."
Moses hated carrying the burden of Israel's sin so much that he says he would rather die than do this. Moses blames God for this discomfort that He has placed on his shoulders. He denies any association with this people, and wants nothing to do them. This is a picture of an inadequate saviour. Moses could not save these people at all from their sins. He hated the idea. And we can understand his heart. Don't we also feel weighed down to always hear of other people's complaints and sorrows, or when they confess their vile sins to us? It is a miserable thing to hear of people's sorrows and sins. And it is double the miserable because there is really nothing we can personally do to help them. We would rather hear of good things and peaceful things. We cannot bear other people's sins. That is Moses' heart at this moment. He desires to throw off the burden off his shoulders.
But our Lord Jesus Christ, unlike Moses, is able to bear the burden of our sin. Christ bore the full weight of our sins and sorrows, until it crushed Him on the cross of Calvary:
Isaiah 53:4-6 (ESV)
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. [5] But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. [6] All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned-every one-to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Christ endured our scorning, our blasphemies, our ignorance, our carelessness, our pride, our hatred of Him. He endured it all on the cross, and bore the weight of our transgressions, and the burden of our punishment for them. He did not shake off the burdens and the chains of condemnation to which He was held, but as a Lamb to the slaughter He held His peace. He was released to the wilderness like the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement. He bore the weight of sin, and destroyed sin with Himself that we may not die like He did.
And Christ rose again, and as our High Priest He ever lives to continue to bear our sins. Even though the sins were committed against Him, He is able to listen to our confessions, and to sympathize with our sorrows. He alone cares, like no man cares. And Christ does not only care, but He can wash us from every sin, taking the power of sin away from us by His power. He crucified our sins with His own body on the tree, that they would no longer be a burden to us.
We must be thankful that Christ cares for us when no one else cared for us. See how Moses so easily became exhausted of Israel, even though they were his own brethren by blood. But Christ bears with us unto the end. Even if we sin against Him, Christ bears the load, not shaking off the burden of our sin, but rebuking us, chastising us, loving us, healing us, washing us. If Moses was our Saviour, we would have been in Hell long time ago. But Christ, Faithful and True, is our Saviour, our Friend who sticks to us closer than a brother.
How shall we then sin anymore against our loving Saviour, who forsakes us not though He bears long with us? Are we going to make Him weary further with our sins, though we once had killed Him with our sins? By no means. The time that we spent as Gentiles, doing the will of the devil, following the passions of our hearts, suffices us. We are now ashamed of what we did that made Christ die. What fruit did we have then, except death? We must stop sinning if Christ has redeemed us, and saved us by His own death. Let us not burden Him anymore with our vain worship that is mixed with sins:
Isaiah 1:13-14 (ESV)
Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations- I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. [14] Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.
Let us bear the sins of others, as Christ bears our sins. By the power that Christ supplies we can forgive other people's sins towards us, and bear with their evil. We may, as Moses did, from time to time complain to God, but God has promised that He will not give us more temptations we can bear. Christ knows that we cannot bear the full load of other people's sins, but He gives us the strength to bear the offense of those whom He allows to sin against us. We can bear them with the love that Christ loved us:
1 Corinthians 13:7 (ESV)
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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