Background controversies: timing? church? state? both? connection to context? connection to earlier passages?

I have known for a long time that there are controversies on this passage, and on my first iteration of my sermon I had intended to try to settle all those controversies for you. But it really got bogged down, and my main goal was to show you the practical applications of this passage. And it dawned on me that those practical applications flow out of the passage no matter where you land on the controversies. So I'm not going to try to settle them this morning. I've written a paper that you can read if you want to get into the weeds. But I know at least some of you are going to want to know where I land. So let me spend about three minutes telling you where commentators are fairly united and where they are divided. And I will later give just a few of the details.

There seems to be a fairly strong degree of unity on three things (at least in verses 9-15: 1) First, there is agreement on the grassroots nature of the selection of these leaders. It's clear in verse 13 that at least the leaders mentioned there were chosen by the people, not just unilaterally appointed by Moses - though they were later approved by and ordained by Moses. 2) Second, the leaders in verses 9-15 were intended to oversee ten families. So that hugely limits what kind of government this can be talking about. 3) And third, verses 9-15 seems to be describing a kind of republican or representative government. That much is not really that controversial.

But scholars are divided on whether the representative government in verses 9-15 is ecclesiastical or civil. After all, Moses (as a mediatorial picture of Jesus) was the head of both church and state. So that's the first controversy. Second, are there two parts this passage or one part? In other words, is the whole passage referring to the state, or the church, or is it divided into two parts. Some see verses 9-15 as dealing with the church government that was established in Exodus 18 and verses 16-18 referring to civil judges established around the same time and addressed in the following chapters - especially Exodus 21 and following. I have recently become convinced that that is indeed the most likely view. And there are several clues that scholars have given that have convinced me that he is talking about something different when he gets to verses 16-18. For example, Gary Hall, in the The College Press NIV Commentary, says it is clear that "a new office is introduced"¹ in verse 16. After all, there wasn't a civil judge in Israel for every ten families. That never existed, so the judges of verses 16-18 can't possibly be referring to the rulers of tens in verse 15. And others point out that civil judges were never elected. And there are other exegetical reasons. So even those who believe that the whole passage is referring to the civil government believe that verse 16 is referring to a new office within the civil government that was not mentioned in verses 9-15. But it is true that commentators are all over the board on this passage.

Where do I land? I believe that in verses 9-18 Moses is giving two ways of handling personal problems within Israel. First, the vast majority of problems would be handled within the synagogue system that is briefly described in verses 9-15. But, if the problems amounted to crimes and/or to disagreements with unbelievers who weren't in the synagogues, then those could be handled by civil judges in verses 16-18. Notice that verse 16 introduces the stranger who might live among them. In any case, that seems to be the interpretation that has the fewest problems. But it would take me the whole time of the sermon to be able to slam-dunk settle those debates, and I really don't think that it is necessary to do so in order to benefit from the practical lessons that Moses is teaching. So most of this sermon will focus on the practical issues of leadership. And I don't think there is any need for division on those practical issues.

But before I dive into those practical issues, let's see how it fits with the context. In the first eight verses Moses had just given them a grand vision of conquest. This was their mission. In verses 19 and following we see the problems that happen when people are not gripped by that vision. So it might seem like verses 9-18 constitute an unnecessary interruption of the main theme. But it really is not. If you don't deal with organizational issues and how to handle the burdens of the people within an organization, you are going to see all kinds of dysfunctions happening. Organizational health is one of the keys to spiritual health. That may seem counter-intuitive, but it is.

I've already hinted at the fact that Moses didn't feel it necessary to get into the weeds on this subject - especially since he has already done that in far greater detail in earlier passages. What Moses is doing here is giving a majorly condensed version of two earlier events that happened around the same time because his purpose is to relate the importance of various kinds of leaders to the main theme of this chapter as a whole. He's not interested in getting into the details. That's not his purpose. He is zeroing in on key issues that need to be healthy if we are to succeed in God's mission that he's just given in verses 1-8. OK, enough by way of introduction.

Leaders have burdens (v. 9) - pray for them

Verse 9 introduces us to the Biblical realism that Moses holds to. Leaders have burdens that can weigh them down and keep them from being effective. And I believe his confession is a confession that many leaders could have today. It says, "And I spoke to you at that time, saying: ‘I alone am not able to bear you." Even the greatest leaders of the past have recognized that they have limits - limits that sometimes made them feel so overwhelmed that they wanted to give up. And you might think, "Well, surely Moses would never want to give up!" But let me read one time that Moses felt so overwhelmed that he wanted to quit. This is Numbers 11, and I'll start reading at verse 11:

Num. 11:11 So Moses said to the LORD, “Why have You afflicted Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all these people on me? 12 Did I conceive all these people? Did I beget them, that You should say to me, “Carry them in your bosom, as a guardian carries a nursing child,’ to the land which You swore to their fathers? 13 Where am I to get meat to give to all these people? For they weep all over me, saying, “Give us meat, that we may eat.’ 14 I am not able to bear all these people alone, because the burden is too heavy for me. 15 If You treat me like this, please kill me here and now—if I have found favor in Your sight—and do not let me see my wretchedness!”

Wow! Moses was very overwhelmed by the cost of leadership. There is a cost involved in all leadership - a cost that should cause God's people to regularly lift their leaders to the throne of grace in prayer - whether the leader is the father of your family, or the leaders in church, business, state, or wherever. And even though Moses should not have given in to a complaining spirit in Numbers 11 (and he recognized that), he at least went to the Lord with His burdens rather than giving up. He cast his cares on the Lord, knowing that the Lord cared for him.

But the point of Deuteronomy 1:9 is to remind us that there is a cost involved in leadership. And that cost should drive us to the Lord for strength as it did Moses. A leader who does not daily find his strength in the Lord will eventually burn out. If Moses, one of the most gifted men on the face of the earth, could not engage in his leadership ministry in his own strength, wisdom, and abilities, then neither can we. And there is no need to just apply this principle to church leaders. Any leaders who aren't cast upon God's strength are obviously not doing everything God has called them to do. Why do I say that? Well, I believe that God calls leaders into the realm of the impossible to force them to step into the realm of the supernatural. Another way of saying it is that He wants them to lead by grace, and not simply by their natural abilities. If leaders depend solely upon their natural abilities, it will get to their heads and eventually get to their souls. But if leaders fully enter the calling that God has given to them, they will get beyond themselves and be forced to depend daily upon God's strength. That's a good thing. It is so important that leaders learn to not bear their burdens alone. And it is so important that we lift our leaders up to throne of grace.

Why do leaders have burdens? (vv. 10-12)

But let's spend a little bit of time looking at why leaders have burdens.

Blessings can lead to burden (vv. 10-11)

The first reason given in the text may seem surprising to you. It is that God's rich blessings can lead to greater burdens. Verse 10.

Deut. 1:10 The LORD your God has multiplied you, and here you are today, as the stars of heaven in multitude.

This is an echo of God's promise in Genesis 15:5, where God gives a promise of blessing to Abraham in exactly the same words. Genesis 15:5 says,

Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”

That was a promised blessing. Moses is now seeing that blessing fulfilled. Later, in Genesis 22:17 God told Abraham,

blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies.

Moses recognizes that his burden is a direct result of God fulfilling his promises. And it's not like Moses wanted less blessings. No, no, no. He valued God's blessings. In fact, in verse 11 he says,

11 May the LORD God of your fathers make you a thousand times more numerous than you are, and bless you as He has promised you!

Moses valued God's blessings. He was wishing for more of the same blessing. And yet Moses recognized that the blessing of numbers brought with it the problems of administration, complexity of ministry, and new problems that may not have previously been anticipated. And the weight of new responsibilities was getting to him.

Let's apply this outside the church. How many business leaders find the initial exhilaration and joy of success in their startup business beginning to transition into headaches, problems, stresses, and sorrows as the business grows? It's just the nature of life. God's very blessings can produces new challenges that cast us on God over and over again. And if you have not learned to lean on the Lord, it is easy to want to give up. Of course, we usually recognize that giving up is not the solution - not at all. Even if the leaders are tempted to give up, deep down they know that they can't bail. They cannot bail from God’s calling. So Moses in verse 11 rightly longs for even more blessings (which we have seen were also burdens). But he knows that he is going to have to make administrative changes if he is going to survive.

Leadership limitations can lead to burden (v. 12a)

Verse 12 gives the next reason for the burden - the limitations that all human leaders have - limitations of strength, health, mental capacity, and other limited abilities. He says, "How can I alone bear your problems and your burdens and your complaints?" Just focusing on the first phrase, "How can I alone bear" shows that Moses recognized his own leadership limitations. He couldn't do it alone. When you are looking for leaders, don't just look for competencies. Moses was incredibly competent. But Moses knew that competencies is not enough to be successful in leadership. It's not. He needed the kind of walk with God that would enable him to derive daily strength from God. This is why you want leaders who have learned spiritual competencies as well as job competencies. Both are needed. And of course we will be seeing that one of the spiritual competencies is the humility of recognizing your limitations, and the humility of being willing to share the leadership load with other leaders - but to share it carefully and biblically. So the second reason for his burden was his own human limitations.

The burdens of the people can lead to the leadership burden (v. 12b)

The third thing that led to his leadership burden was the burdens that the people themselves had. It's not like Moses is the only person with burdens! The people themselves had burdens. He regularly ministered to the people to help them with their burdens and he regularly prayed for their burdens. So he says, "How can I alone bear your problems and your burdens and your complaints?" There are three words there that show the neediness of the people he was leading. They had problems they themselves were struggling to solve. They had burdens that they had not yet learned how to cope with by God's grace, and they needed leaders to show them how. And they had complaints that needed to be addressed in a God-centered fashion.

And if leaders have not learned how to handle their own burdens by God's grace, how on earth are they going to help their followers to handle their burdens in a godly way? They won't be in a position to help their people to do so. But the point of verse 12 is that when the people's burdens start flooding the leader's mailbox (so to speak), it adds to his stress and adds to his own sense of burden. Gary and I don't just minister to people face-to-face. We minister to people via phone, email, video chat, and social media platforms that have other forms of communication. And we praise God for the efficiencies that such blessings of technology bring. Praise God! But with blessings, there is added work, and added burden. And we seek to praise God for those burdens rather than complaining about them. But, they are burdens that people need to be aware of.

And even when you look at the specifics of how Moses delegated his burden to others, you will see that it was not a centralized structure, but a highly decentralized structure. Some leaders don't know how to delegate without abdicating, and others don't know how to delegate without micromanaging. Either extreme fails to empower fellow-leaders. So there are unhealthy extremes you can go on in even the area of delegating. Well, God gave Moses a plan that was a decentralization of leadership authority that actually empowered the people and mobilized the people. Can there also be problems with such a decentralized structure? Obviously yes, as Dathan and Abihu illustrate. Dathan and Abihu are two of several examples in the Old Testament where decentralization can lead to its own set of problems. But there really is no other realistic option.

Application: Blessings from God often bring new responsibilities and challenges that require humility and an honest assessment of our limits

So my application of this first main point is that we leaders need to develop humility, realism, dependence on God, and honesty about our limitations if we are to be successful in balancing the responsibilities that God has given to us. We need the humility to recognize our own limits. But we also need to have an honest assessment of our own and other people's gifts. Everyone's gifts are different. So, the bottom line is "Pray for your leaders" - not just your church leaders, but for all your leaders. I think these are principles that apply to every kind of leadership, even though the focus in verses 9-15 is on the church.

Leaders need to share the burden through shared leadership (vv. 13-15)

Moving on to verses 13-15, we see that leaders need to share the burden through shared leadership. And I've already mentioned that history shows how difficult it can be for leaders to have the balance between abdication of responsibility on the one extreme and micromanaging other leaders on the other extreme. We can be so busy with the overwhelming tasks that we are blinded to the solutions, and it sometimes takes an outsider to point out those inefficiencies to us. That's what happened in Exodus 18. Jethro (as an outsider) had to point out that with the centralization of leadership that was happening, all kinds of inefficiencies were happening. People were standing in line from morning till evening to try to get advice from Moses and it wore out both the people and Moses. Moses didn't have the time to administrate.

So sometimes it takes an outsider like Jethro to objectively evaluate what is happening in a church and to ask a pastor or to ask a session, “Why are you doing this? Why are you micromanaging the church? Why do you feel that your fingers have to be in everything? Why are you not delegating? It’s a waste of your time and talents and its an inefficient use of God’s people’s gifts.” And the church polity that God established in Exodus 18 was a brilliant solution, even if it wasn't an easy solution.

But leaders in other areas of life sometimes need to get outside counsel to help them to learn to be more efficient. And there are Jethro-like-businesses out there that can come in and help businessmen to adjust their business model to become more efficient. (You can tell that I'm just dealing with the high-level general principles in this section that really can apply more broadly.)

Don't let desperation make you bypass qualifications (v. 13)

Verse 13 shows that one of the things that Jethro advised was that Moses must not let his desperation for help to make him bypass the need to examine the qualifications of potential future leaders. Business leaders sometimes bring on new staff out of desperation, not thinking carefully enough about whether the new staff are qualified. And the same is true in the church. Prematurely putting new leaders into office is just trading one set of problems for another.

In verse 13 Moses told the people, "Choose wise, understanding, and knowledgeable men from among your tribes, and I will make them heads over you." Keep in mind that this is just a super-condensed summary statement, not the complete list of qualifications that God laid out in Exodus 18, which included aptitudes, competencies, the fear of God, total truthfulness, and lack of covetousness, etc. But here he uses three words that emphasized both academic qualities and intuitive abilities to connect wisdom with real life. He wanted the church officers to have both academic and practical wisdom. And by the way, he saw the qualifications emerging from the previous experience that many of these people already had.

But I think this can be applied beyond the church. How many businesses have gotten themselves in trouble by elevating people to a position out of desperation, but not considering how the new leader might limit the company? And of course that is true in the realm of the church to an even greater degree. Don't allow desperate need to make you bypass Biblical qualifications for office. And the specific officers that were being raised up in Exodus 18 were both ruling elders and teaching elders. All of them needed the qualifications here and in Exodus 18 to some degree.

Don't bypass community participation (vv. 13a, 14)

But the next point was that Moses was not to bypass community participation. Again, the specific situation in mind was the synagogue - which continued into the New Testament church, which is also called a synagogue - for example in James 2:2. People chose their leaders according to God's guidelines and then Moses installed only those nominees who truly met the guidelines. In future generations it was the presbytery that examined and installed, but Moses had to start somewhere. He didn't yet have a presbytery to examine and install.

Verse 13 was addressed to the people: "Choose wise, understanding, and knowledgeable men from among your tribes (so there was previous experience), and I will make them heads over you.’" And verse 14 shows that they agreed. "And you answered me and said, “The thing which you have told us to do is good.’" The Presbyterian synagogue-system that was established in Exodus 18 was a republican kind of representative government that required active participation of the congregation; it required their vote.

And just as a side-note, you might be interested to know that one of the reasons why some scholars have applied verses 9-15 to politics is because the same republican, representative ecclesiology that is referred to in truncated form here, was copied down through history and also applied to civics in numerous Reformation countries. I'll just give you one of many quotes that could be given. In a paper called "Ecclesiastical Republic," Tim Renshaw said,

after the War of 1776 was over, when the leaders in the states came to settle the form of government in their states, they simply copied into every state constitution the simple elements of representative republicanism found in the Presbyterian system. It is a matter of history that cannot be denied that Presbyterianism, as found in the Bible, and in the standards of the several Presbyterian churches, defined the character of our free institutions.²

And he spells that out in great detail. It's a fascinating article that shows how much was copied even on a granular level into civics. And of course, there are entire books that have been written on this subject. Now , I will say that our founding fathers wouldn't recognize the modern American system as anything they had created because America has moved so far away from those early foundations - especially after the War Between the States. But the same article traces this presbyterianism through the Scottish reformers, the Waldensians and earlier groups back to the Jewish church established in Exodus 18, and says, "Presbyterianism breeds constitutional republics." And I've put a chart in your outline of how the leadership was divided up in Exodus 18. It’s describing church government. And I'm not going to get into that in detail this morning.

Leadership varies according to gifts, maturity, and skill (v. 15)

In any case, most commentaries agree that verse 15 is referring back to Exodus 18. But I just want to point to a few principles that lend themselves to a healthy organization. It shows that not everyone got to be one of the leaders of thousands. Each leader was evaluated for his own unique gifts, maturity, and skill. It says, "So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and knowledgeable men, and made them heads over you, leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties, leaders of tens, and officers for your tribes." Brown's commentary on Deuteronomy represents a majority when it says, "This is almost certainly the occasion that is also recorded in Exodus 18:13–27."¹

Well, in my opinion, if that is the case, then at least verses 9-15 are clearly talking about the establishment of the Presbyterian synagogue system. I've written a paper on Exodus 18 that shows this to be the case. This was the view of the Scottish Reformers and virtually all Presbyterians of that era and following, who took these instructions as the basis for church government. And notice that there are leaders (plural) at each of the levels. This is not a hierarchy of individuals. Instead, it is a case for higher levels of involvement - what some people call higher courts. For a local synagogue to be a self-sustaining synagogue, it had to have more than one leader who ruled the church. Each leader was a leader of at least ten families and each local session had to have leaders (plural) of "tens" plural. I've put a chart in your outline that breaks that all down. And then there were delegated presbyteries, synods, and General Assemblies - where some of the more gifted elders were delegated to represent the presbyteries at synods and at the General Assembly.

And I might as well get into at least a summary of why this is only referring to the church. If you don't apply verse 15 to the church, there are numerous exegetical problems. It simply does not fit anything else. If you were to apply this to the civil government, you might think, "Hey, this could easily apply to the military, with leaders of tens being leaders of squads." But the military was already well-organized into divisions and what Exodus earlier called "orderly ranks" in Exodus 6 (Ex 6:26; 7:4; 12:17,41,51; cf. Numb. 33:1). The military structure continued long after Moses, and it was a completely different structure. But in any case, there was simply no need to reorganize the military in Exodus 18. So this was clearly not talking about the military.

Second, my paper on Exodus 18 shows how it was not describing the civil court system. Even in David's day there were less than 6,000 civil judges in the land - a tiny fraction of the leaders being described here and in Exodus 18. And civil judges simply didn't need this kind of detailed organization to be able function as judges.

Nor did it describe any other department of civics. Nor did it describe the leadership of the tabernacle (and later, the temple), which was quite different. I won't get into all of the details - the details that can be found in my other paper.

But let's look at the terminology used here. The New King James translation doesn't do justice to the two kinds of officers here. The translation of the first set of leaders as "heads" I guess is OK, but most translate it simply as "leaders." Those leaders referred back to the ruling elders established in the synagogue in Exodus 18.

But there is a second kind of leader at the end of that verse. The translation of the Hebrew word shoterim (שֹׁטְרִ֖ים) as "officers" is a very bland translation since all the leaders in the verse were officers. They all were. The word shoterim literally means "scribes," and it is everywhere else translated as "scribes." It should be translated that way here. Scribes were leaders who had special training in reading, writing, and teaching. In any case, if you just take the literal Hebrew, it's fairly straightforward. Verse 15 shows that there were ruling elders and teaching elders. The Scottish Reformers said that the two officers in verse 15 correspond to the two kinds of officers in every synagogue in every age - ruling elders who helped to shepherd to sheep, and scribes who not only did what ruling elders did, but who also preached and administered the sacraments. In the New Testament it is clear that a scribe was a synonymn for a trained minister. Jesus calls my office that of a scribe in Matthew 13:52 and in Matthew 23:34. And by the way, it looks like our denomination will likely be calling the ruling elders "shepherds" and the scribes "ministers." I think that works very well in describing their main functions. Those are synonyms that the Bible elsewhere uses.

So even though all of those rulers in the synagogue were required to have certain qualifications, it was the Levitical scribes who preached every Sabbath and who took the people to the tabernacles in order serve communion to their congregation. Since this sermon is not a sermon defending the structure given in Exodus 18, or defending one form of church government, I won't spend more time on verse 15 - other than to say that Moses tried to ensure that leaders were placed according to their gifts and abilities.

Application: God’s people are called to recognize, equip, and empower a variety of leaders according to their gifts and maturity, not relying on a single individual

And the application that I have made in your outline is that God’s people are called to recognize, equip, and empower a variety of leaders according to their gifts and maturity, not relying on a single individual. When you have a healthy elders board (what we call a "session"), you have a shared leadership that can help share (as verse 12 words it) the problems, burdens, and complaints of the people. Leaders should desire the healthy functioning of every member of the church that God has entrusted to them. The church is the most basic structure for ministering to the needs of God's people.

Leaders must guard against the vulnerabilities such burdens can produce (vv. 16-18)

But - when a crime happens, God delegated the responsibility to resolve the outcomes of that crime to the civil courts. And since strangers were not members of the synagogues, they too had access to those courts. Of course, not all even agree that there is a new group being addressed in these verses. That's OK. I think the applications are still very relevant. But there are exegetical reasons why I side with those who say that verse 16 is now moving to a new group of people. I’ve already mentioned three reasons. The College Press NIV Commentary says,

A new office is introduced, that of judges. This was both a judicial and military term as the book of Judges shows, but here the focus was on judicial matters. A judge’s basic function was to listen... to what their kinsmen were saying and make righteous decisions (צֶדֶק, ṣedeq) or judge fairly. There was a standard of justice and righteousness grounded in the character of God (Deut 16:18), and they were to make decisions based on that standard. Brother is a Deuteronomic term for members of the covenant community that reflected the strong family concept of the book (see Deut 1:28; 3:18, 20; 15:2, 3, 7; 17:15; 22:1). Justice was to be also applied to the alien, that is, the foreigner who lived among them. These aliens were to be accepted into Israelite society with all the rights except access to religious practices (Exod 22:21; Deut 24:17, 18; Lev 19:33, 34). The basis for this compassion was Israel’s experience as an alien in Egypt. Other alien laws are covered in Deut 14:29; 16:11 and 26:11.³

But the application I'm going to be making applies much more broadly. Leaders must recognize the internal vulnerabilities that ministry burdens can produce in them. And I've just listed three.

Favoritism

The first is favoritism. These civil judges were supposed to be objective and to give just judgments without favoring one person over another. Let's read the whole paragraph, beginning at verse 16.

Deut. 1:16   “Then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, ‘Hear the cases between your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the stranger who is with him. 17 You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid in any man’s presence, for the judgment is God’s. The case that is too hard for you, bring to me, and I will hear it.’ 18 And I commanded you at that time all the things which you should do.

To judge an alien in court with the same fairness that you might give to a citizen required that you be completely free from favoritism - including racial prejudice. To not show favoritism to a powerful political figure in a case against a small-fry would take backbone. But God's command was, "You shall not show partiality in judgment." He wanted them to judge the cases of their friends the same way they would judge the cases of their enemies. He wanted them to judge the poor the same way they would judge the rich. Literally it could be translated, "do not regard faces in judgment." The word “faces” is in there. Which face appears before you should be irrelevant to justice.

Of course, this is a principle that church elders should embrace as well, even if this paragraph is being addressed to civil judges. It's a simple principle of justice. And this is a principle that parents should embrace when they are dealing with issues among their children. But if there is the least bit of tendency to be swayed by peer pressure, friendship, relationships, money, who has treated us well, etc. and to favor them, then we have an internal vulnerability that can be exploited by others - and exploited badly. And if leaders don't recognize their own potential vulnerabilities, they are going to be more easily manipulated.

Fear

The next vulnerability is fear. If a leader has a tendency to fear man, he won't be able to make the tough decisions that need to be made. This is true in even a business, isn't it? But it is certainly true of a civil judge. If he fears the crowd (and perhaps a lynching), he has an inner vulnerability that will make his burden even greater - and maybe impossible to bear. This is why sinful fear is an enemy that we must learn how to conquer before we go into any kind of leadership. Until we do, the burdens of others could sway our judgment.

Loneliness

The last vulnerability is loneliness. Leaders who do not have the support of other leaders can feel so alone that it is debilitating. Moses wanted these judges to know, "The case that is too hard for you, bring to me, and I will hear it." Knowing that there are people who can advise you fairly and honestly is a huge benefit in any organization. Gary and I very much value the ability to call other elders in the denomination for advice, and they frequently call us for advice. And when we give each other advice, we are constantly going to the Scripture to see what God commanded - which is what God admonished the civil judges to do in verse 18. In that verse He said, "And I commanded you at that time all the things which you should do." He's addressing that to civil judges. Everything a civil judge needs is in the Bible. That's what the word "all" implies. Civil judges are first and foremost accountable to God, and must engage in their civil office as God has commanded them to do. Of course, Moses doesn't repeat everything that God told the civil judges to do in Exodus 21 and following. But for civil judges to do everything that God commanded them to do in those later chapters could easily make them feel lonely, unpopular, and isolated.

As one commentator on this verse said, "Those who constantly bear the burdens of others, need to know how and where they can share their own."⁴ I feel for the judges who cave in on principle because of the enormous pressure that a president, or a congress, or citizens place upon them. But this is why judges (and really, any leaders) must be internally ready and not just ready in terms of competencies.

Application: Burdens can easily challenge a leader's inner vulnerabilities, requiring integrity, courage, and dependence on God’s wisdom, with an awareness of one’s own limitations.

The application in your outline is really a repeat of what we have been saying. Leadership in God’s community requires integrity, courage, and dependence on God’s wisdom, with an awareness of one’s own limitations. Pray these principles into the leaders you know in your family, at your work, in our nation, and in our churches. And may these leaders be able to handle God's blessings without being overly burdened. Amen.