generation which had arisen in the wilderness might, by a special recapitulation of those events, have them the more deeply impressed on their minds, and be stirred up by the remembrance of them to serve their God with more fidelity than their fathers had done. The appointment of these inferior judges was one of the first acts which took place in the wilderness : and, as it originated from Jethro, his father-in- law, and not from God, Moses was fearful that it might be open to an unfavourable construction, and that he might appear, if not to have neglected his duty towards the people, at least to have been defec- tive in love towards them : and therefore, in relating the fact, he tells them how anxiously he had at the very time manifested his zeal in their service ; since, whilst issuing his order for the appointment of these men, instead of grudging that they were so numerous as to render the minute attention which he had hi- therto paid to their concerns impracticable, he had expressed the most ardent desire for their further increase, saying, " The Lord God of your fathers make you a thousand times so many more as ye are, and bless you, as he hath promised you !"
This benevolent wish of his will lead me to con- sider the prosperity of God's Israel,
I. As a matter of promise —
To the promises of God relating to this subject Moses refers : " The Lord bless you, as he has pro- mised you!"
Now God has promised innumerable blessings to those who are of Israel according to the flesh —
[He had assured Abraham that his seed should be nume- rous " as the stars of heaven, and countless as the sands upon the sea-shore a." They had already multiplied greatly ; (they were about thirty thousand times as many as they had been two hundred and fifty years before :) and they should yet mul- tiply to a far greater extent, as they did in succeeding ages ; and as they shall do in ages yet to come : for though at present they are brought low and are very few in number, God has expressly declared, by his prophet, that " he will multiply them
a Gen. xv. 5.