Deuteronomy 1:9

"And I spake unto you at that time, saying, I am not able to bear you myself alone: Jehovah your God hath multiplied you, and, behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude. Jehovah, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times as many as ye are, and bless you, as he hath promised you! How can I myself alone bear your cumbrance, and your burden, and your strife? Take you wise men, and understanding, and known, according to your tribes, and I will make them heads over you. And ye answered me and said, The thing which thou hast spoken is good for us to do. So I took the heads of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds, and captains of fifties, and captains of tens, and officers according to your tribes. And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes among your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother, and the sojourner that is with him. Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; ye shall hear the small and the great alike; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God's: and the cause that is too hard for you ye shall bring unto me, and I will hear it. And I commanded you at that time all the things which ye should do."

Cousins called these verses "an apparent interpolation";[7] but, of course, they are no such thing, having a very close connection with Deuteronomy 1:8b, and thus showing the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham that his descendants would be like the stars and the sands of the seashore. It is exactly the type of historical reference that should be expected of an aged man on such an occasion as this.

The material here is recorded in Numbers 13 and Exodus 18, but, as any senior citizen would do in recalling past history, certain events are not precisely separated as to time and place. "It is obvious that Moses only touched on certain points of the whole history, without regard to order of time, but with a special purpose."[8] That purpose was clearly that of demonstrating to Israel that the long forty-year delay was due solely to themselves for their unbelief, disobedience, and intolerable behavior.