Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place [such] over them, [to be] rulers of thousands, [and] rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:
21. Observe the stress laid on the moral qualifications of the judges selected.
provide ] a peculiar usage. The Heb. word itself ( , ‘see’) is very unusual in prose; and never elsewhere occurs in the sense of look out, provide. The usual word for ‘see’ ( ) occurs in the same sense Gen 22:8; Gen 41:33, and elsewhere. E uses sometimes rare words.
able ] or, capable, worthy: the expression implies moral and physical efficiency, rather than intellectual ability: it is rendered worthy, 1Ki 1:42; 1Ki 1:52, virtuous, Rth 3:11, Pro 12:4; and often valiant, as 1Sa 14:52.
rulers ] or, overseers (cf. on Exo 1:11): in Deu 1:15 rendered ‘captains.’ Not the word rendered ‘ruler’ in Exo 16:22. Except in Deu 1:15 (repeated from here), the word ( sar), when followed by ‘of thousands,’ &c., is used only in connexion with the army, being then rendered ‘captain’ (1Sa 8:12, 2Ki 1:9: ‘captains of tens,’ however, occurs only here and Deu 1:15). Such an organization of the people for judicial purposes seems strange; and it is difficult to understand how it would work practically. If the ten, fifty, &c. mean so many individuals, the number of judges appointed seems excessive; hence it has been supposed (though there is nothing in the text to suggest it) that the numbers are intended to denote not individuals, but heads of families: but even so, as each individual Israelite would belong apparently to four groups, and be under the jurisdiction of four judges, it is not clear which of these judges particular cases would come before for trial.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
21 23. But all minor cases Jethro counsels him no longer to deal with himself, but to leave to the decision of subordinate judges appointed for the purpose.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Able men – The qualifications are remarkably complete, ability, piety, truthfulness, and unselfishness. From Deu 1:13, it appears that Moses left the selection of the persons to the people, an example followed by the Apostles; see Act 6:3.
Rulers of thousands … – The numbers appear to be conventional, corresponding nearly, but not exactly, to the military, or civil divisions of the people: the largest division (1,000) is used as an equivalent of a gens under one head, Num 1:16; Num 10:4; Jos 22:14.
The word rulers, sometimes rendered princes, is general, including all ranks of officials placed in command. The same word is used regularly on Egyptian monuments of the time of Moses.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 21. Able men] Persons of wisdom, discernment, judgment, prudence, and fortitude; for who can be a ruler without these qualifications?
Such as fear God] Who are truly religious, without which they will feel little concerned either for the bodies or souls of the people.
Men of truth] Honest and true in their own hearts and lives; speaking the truth, and judging according to the truth.
Hating covetousness] Doing all for God’s sake, and love to man; labouring to promote the general good; never perverting judgment, or suppressing the testimonies of God, for the love of money or through a base, man-pleasing spirit, but expecting their reward from the mercy of God in the resurrection of the just.
Rulers of thousands, c.] Millenaries, centurions, quinquagenaries, and decurions each of these, in all probability, dependent on that officer immediately above himself. So the decurion, or ruler over ten, if he found a matter too hard for him, brought it to the quinquagenary, or ruler of fifty; if, in the course of the exercise of his functions, he found a cause too complicated for him to decide on, he brought it to the centurion, or ruler over a hundred. In like manner the centurion brought his difficult case to the millenary, or ruler over a thousand; the case that was too hard for him to judge, he brought to Moses; and the case that was too hard for Moses, he brought immediately to GOD. It is likely that each of these classes had a court composed of its own members, in which causes were heard and tried. Some of the rabbins have supposed that there were 600 rulers of thousands, 6000 rulers of hundreds, 12,000 rulers of fifties and 60,000 rulers of tens; making in the whole 78,600 officers. But Josephus says (Antiq., lib. iii., chap. 4) that Moses, by the advice of Jethro, appointed rulers over myriads, and then over thousands; these he divided into five hundreds, and again into hundreds, and into fifties; and appointed rulers over each of these, who divided them into thirties, and at last into twenties and tens; that each of these companies had a chief, who took his name from the number of persons who were under his direction and government. Allowing what Josephus states to be correct, some have supposed that there could not have been less than 129,860 officers in the Israelitish camp. But such computations are either fanciful or absurd. That the people were divided into thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens, we know, for the text states it, but we cannot tell precisely how many of such divisions there were, nor, consequently, the number of officers.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Able men, Heb. men of might, not for strength of body, but for greatness, resolution, courage, and constancy of mind, which is the best preservative against partiality and corruption in judgment, to which men of little minds, or narrow souls, are easily swayed by fears, or hopes, or gifts.
Such as fear God; which will restrain them from all injustice, even when they have ability and opportunity to do wrong so cunningly or powerfully that they may escape the observation and censure of men.
Men of truth, or, of faith, or faithful, such as love the truth, and diligently labour to find it out in all causes, and then pass a true and righteous sentence; not at all respecting persons, but only the truth and right of their causes; such as hate lies and slanders, and will severely rebuke and punish them. Hating covetousness: this, though included in the former, is particularly expressed, because gifts and bribes are the great corrupters of judges and judgments.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
Moreover, thou shalt provide out of all the people,…. Or look out t from among them; see Ac 6:3,
able men; or “men of power” u; meaning not so much men of strong and robust constitutions, who, as Aben Ezra says, are able to bear labour; but men that have strength of heart, as Ben Gersom expresses it, men of spirit and courage, and are not afraid to do justice, to repress vice, and countenance virtue; or, as Maimonides says w, have a strong heart, or courage and boldness to deliver the oppressed from the hands of the oppressor. Jarchi interprets it of rich men, of men of substance, who have no need to flatter, or play the hypocrite, and to know the faces of men:
such as fear God; who have the fear of God before their eyes, and on their hearts, in all they do, and therefore cannot do those things that others do, who are destitute of it; cannot give a cause the wrong way wilfully, or pervert judgment, and are the reverse of the character of the unjust judge, that neither feared God nor regarded man, Lu 18:2:
men of truth; true men, sincere, upright, and faithful men, that love truth and hate lies and falsehood, and will take some pains to get at the truth of a cause, to inquire where it lies, and pursue and encourage it where it is found, and discourage to the uttermost falsehood, lies, and perjury: hating covetousness; in themselves and others, filthy lucre, dishonest gain, mammon of unrighteousness, and so not to be bribed and corrupted, and execute wrong judgment for the sake of money:
and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens; meaning not courts of judicature, consisting of such a number of judges, for such a court was never known to have a thousand judges upon the bench at once; the highest court of judicature that ever was among the Jews, which was long after this time, consisted but of seventy or seventy one: but the sense is, that each of these should have such a number of persons, or rather families, under their care, who, when they applied unto them for justice, should faithfully administer it to them;
[See comments on Ex 18:25].
t “videbis”, Montanus; “tu prospice”, Tigurine version; “tu videto”, Drusius. u “viros virtutis”, Montanus, Vatablus; “viros fortitudinis”, Cartwright.
w Hilchot Sanhedrin, c. 2. sect. 7.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
21. Moreover, thou shalt (199) provide out of all the people Literally so, “thou shalt provide;” meaning, thou shalt choose out, and take the most worthy, so that such an office be not entrusted rashly to any one that offers. But this was most reasonable, among a free people, that the judges should not be chosen for their wealth or rank, but for their superiority in virtue. Yet although it be right that regard should be chiefly had to virtue, so that if any one of the lower orders be found more suitable than others, he should be preferred to the noble or the rich; still should any one choose to, lay this down as a perpetual and necessary rule, he will be justly accounted contentious. Jethro enumerates four qualifications which must be principally regarded in the appointment of judges, viz., ability in business, the fear of God, integrity, and the contempt, of riches, not to exclude others whereof, as we shall soon see, mention is made in the first chapter of Deuteronomy, but to signify that all are not qualified, nay, that extraordinary virtues are required which, by synecdoche, he embraces in these four. The words which we translate “brave men,” (200) ( viros fortes,) are, in the Hebrew, “men of bravery,” ( viros fortitudinis;) by which title some think that strong and laborious men are described. But in my opinion, Moses rather designates strenuous and courageous persons, whom he opposes not only to the inactive, but to the timid and cowardly also. But because vigor of mind as well as of body is but frail without the fear of God, he adds piety in the second place, in that they should exercise their office as having an account to render to God. “Truth” is opposed not only to deception and gross falsehoods, but to popularity-hunting, flattering promises, and other crooked arts, which tend to corrupt justice. Lastly, hatred of covetousness is demanded; because nothing is more antagonistic to justice than eagerness for gain; and since snares are so constantly set for judges by the offers of pecuniary advantage, they would not be duly fortified against this mode of corruption, unless they earnestly detested avarice.
(199) Thou shalt choose. — Lat.
(200) אנשי חיל, Men of might. It is S. M. who thinks the words to mean “Strong and hardy men, capable of bearing fatigue.” ́̓Αιδρας δυνατοὺς LXX. — W.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(21) Provide out of all the people able men.This was the gist of Jethros advice. It seems somewhat surprising that it should have been needed. In Egypt, as in all other settled governments, while the king was the fountain of justice, it was customary for him to delegate the duty of hearing causes to officials of different ranks, who decided in this or that class of complaints. In Arabia a similar practice no doubt prevailed. Jethro himself had his subordinates, the head men of the various clans or families, who discharged judicial functions in small matters, and thereby greatly lightened the burthen which would otherwise have rested upon his shoulders. His advice to Moses was simply that he should adopt this generally established systemone which belongs to a very early period in the history of nations.
Jethros definition of able menmen, i.e., fitted to exercise the judicial officeis interesting. He requires them to be (1) God-fearing, (2) truthful, and (3) men of integrity. The second and third requirements would approve themselves to men of all times and countries. The first would generally be deemed superfluous. But it really lies at the root of all excellence of character, and is the point of greatest importance.
Rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds.An organisation of the entire people on a decimal system is implied in the arrangement suggested. Such an organisation may not improbably have existed at the same in connection with the march and the encamping. See the Comment on Exo. 13:18.) Jethro thought that it might be utilised for judicial purposes. One an out of ten might be competent to judge in small matters. If either party were dissatisfied, there might be an appeal to the ruler of fiftyfrom him the ruler of an hundred, and then to the ruler
Of a thousand. In all ordinary disputes this would suffice, and the contest would not require to be carried further.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
21. Able men Men of strong, commanding character, and manifestly competent for the work to be done . Four distinguishing qualities of the ideal judge are here expressed: able, (competent, capable,) God-fearing, truth-loving, and bribery-hating . Without these qualities no man is fit to occupy a judgment seat . , here rendered covetousness, means unrighteous gain, obtained by way of extortion . The righteous ruler “despiseth the gain of oppressions, shaking his hands from holding bribes . ” Isa 33:15.
To be rulers Chiefs or princes .
Thousands, hundreds, fifties, tens “This minute classification of the people is thoroughly in accordance with the Semitic character, and was retained in after ages . The numbers appear to be conventional, corresponding nearly, but not exactly, to the military or civil divisions of the people . ” Speaker’s Com . Comp . Num 1:16; Num 10:4; Jos 22:14.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Exo 18:21. Moreover thou shalt provide, &c. Jethro, advising Moses to retain his high office of mediator between God and the people, and to preserve to himself the supreme legislative power under God, (see Exo 18:22.) exhorts him, very prudently, to establish subordinate rulers of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens; who were, at all seasons, to administer justice, according to the commission with which they were each entrusted. And, as nothing can be of greater consequence than that justice be truly and impartially administered, Jethro advises to select men of such qualifications as might render them fit for the office. He counsels, first, that they be able men, men of ( chil) persevering strength, firmness of body or mind, fortitude; a necessary qualification of judges, who, neither through fear nor favour, should be turned aside from the path of justice and integrity: the word also may include that patience and assiduity in hearing, weighing, &c. which is so requisite to just and impartial judgment. Secondly, That they be such as fear God, and, consequently, would bear in mind, that they also have a Judge in heaven. Thirdly, Men of truth; men whose veracity may be depended upon, who may be absolutely confided in and trusted, and, consequently, will never deviate from the paths of justice: indeed, truth and justice are so nearly allied, that the absence of the one from any tribunal must include the absence of the other. When Isaiah tells us, that judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off; it is because truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter, Isa 59:14. Fourthly, Hating covetousness: this corresponds with fearing God, and is, indeed, the necessary consequence of it; for they who fear God must hate covetousness, which is idolatry, and consequently the grossest contradiction to a sincere regard for the Deity. The word is strong here, HATING covetousness; holding it in the utmost detestation and abhorrence; it being a vice, of all others, most improper for a judge: whose eyes the love of money would fatally blind, and cause him sadly to pervert judgment. See Deu 16:19. 1Sa 8:3. Happy people they whose judges and magistrates are endued with these qualifications!
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
2Sa 23:3 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Exo 18:21 Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place [such] over them, [to be] rulers of thousands, [and] rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:
Ver. 2l. Out of all the people. ] Magistrates must be drained from the dregs, sifted from the bran of the ordinary sort of people.
Able men.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Exodus
THE IDEAL STATESMAN 1
Exo 18:21
You will have anticipated my purpose in selecting this text. I should be doing violence to your feelings and mine if I made no reference to the event which has united the Empire and the world in one sentiment. The great tree has fallen, and the crash has for the moment silenced all the sounds of the forest. Wars abroad and controversies at home are hushed. All men, of all schools of opinion, creeds, and parties, see now, in the calm face of the dead, ‘the likeness to the great of old’; and it says something, with all our faults, for the soundness of the heart of English opinion, that all sorts and conditions of men have brought their sad wreaths to lay them on that coffin.
But, whilst much has been said, far more eloquently and authoritatively than I can say it, about the many aspects of that many-sided life, surely it becomes us, as Christian people, to look at it from the distinctively Christian point of view, and to gather some of the lessons which, so regarded, it teaches us.
My text is part of the sagacious advice which Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, gave him about the sort of men that he should pick out to be his lieutenants in civic government. Its old-fashioned, simple phraseology may hide from some of us the elevation and comprehensiveness of the ideal that it sets forth. But it is a grand ideal; and amongst the great names of Englishmen who have guided the destinies of this land, none have approached more nearly to it than he whose death has taken away the most striking personality from our public life.
So let me ask you to look with me, first, at the ideal of a politician that is set forth here.
The free life of the desert, far away from the oppressions of surrounding military despotisms, that remarkable and antique constitution of the clan, with all its beautiful loyalty, had given this Arab sheikh a far loftier conception of what a ruler of men was than he could have found exemplified at Pharaoh’s court; or than, alas! has been common in many so-called Christian countries. The field upon which he intended that these great qualities should be exercised was a very limited one, to manage the little affairs of a handful of fugitives in the desert. But the scale on which we work has nothing to do with the principles by which we work, and the laws of perspective and colouring are the same, whether you paint the minutest miniature or a gigantic fresco. So what was needed for managing the little concerns of Moses’ wanderers in the wilderness is the ideal of what is needed for the men who direct the public affairs of world-wide empires.
Let me run over the details. They must be ‘able men,’ or, as the original has it, ‘men of strength.’ There is the intellectual basis, and especially the basis of firm, brave, strongly-set will which will grasp convictions, and, whatever comes, will follow them to their conclusions. The statesman is not one that puts his ear down to the ground to hear the tramp of some advancing host, and then makes up his mind to follow in their paths; he is not sensitive to the varying winds of public opinion, nor does he trim his sails to suit them, but he comes to his convictions by first-hand approach to, and meditation on, the great principles that are to guide, and then holds to them with a strength that nothing can weaken, and a courage that nothing can daunt. ‘Men of strength’ is what democracies like ours do most need in their leaders; a ‘strong man, in a blatant land,’ who knows his own mind, and is faithful to it for ever. That is a great demand.
‘Such as fear God’-there is the secret of strength, not merely in reference to the intellectual powers which are not dependent for their origin, though they may be for the health and vigour of their work, upon any religious sentiment, but in regard to all true power. He that would govern others must first be lord of himself, and he only is lord of himself who is consciously and habitually the servant of God. So that whatever natural endowment we start with, it must be heightened, purified, deepened, enlarged, by the presence in our lives of a deep and vital religious conviction. That is true about all men, leaders and led, large and small. That is the bottom-heat in the greenhouse, as it were, that will make riper and sweeter all the fruits which are the natural result of natural capacities. That is the amulet and the charm which will keep a man from the temptations incident to his position and the weaknesses incident to his character. The fear of God underlies the noblest lives. That is not to-day’s theory. We are familiar with the fact, and familiar with the doctrine formulated out of it, that there may be men of strong and noble lives and great leaders in many a department of human activity without any reference to the Unseen. Yes, there may be, but they are all fragments, and the complete man comes only when the fear of the Lord is guide, leader, impulse, polestar, regulator, corrector, and inspirer of all that he is and all that he does.
‘Men of truth’-that, of course, glances at the crooked ways which belong not only to Eastern statesmanship, but it does more than that. He that is to lead men must himself be led by an eager haste to follow after, and to apprehend, the very truth of things. And there must be in him clear transparent willingness to render his utmost allegiance, at any sacrifice, to the dawning convictions that may grow upon him. It is only fools that do not change. Freshness of enthusiasm, and fidelity to new convictions opening upon a man, to the end of his life, are not the least important of the requirements in him who would persuade and guide individuals or a nation.
‘Hating covetousness’; or, as it might be rendered, ‘unjust gain.’ That reference to the ‘oiling of the palms’ of Eastern judges may be taken in a loftier signification. If a man is to stand forth as the leader of a people, he must be clear, as old Samuel said that he was, from all suspicion of having been following out his career for any form of personal advantage. ‘Clean hands,’ and that not only from the vulgar filth of wealth, but from the more subtle advantages which may accrue from a lofty position, are demanded of the leader of men.
Such is the ideal. The requirements are stern and high, and they exclude the vermin that infest ‘politics,’ as they are called, and cause them to stink in many nostrils. The self-seeking schemer, the one-eyed partisan, the cynic who disbelieves in ideals of any sort, the charlatan who assumes virtues that he does not possess, and mouths noble sentiments that go no deeper than his teeth, are all shut out by them. The doctrine that a man may do in his public capacity things which would be disgraceful in private life, and yet retain his personal honour untarnished, is blown to atoms by this ideal. It is much to be regretted, and in some senses to be censured, that so many of our wisest, best, and most influential men stand apart from public life. Much of that is due to personal bias, much more of it is due to the pressure of more congenial duties, and not a little of it is due to the disregard of Jethro’s ideal, and to the degradation of public life which has ensued thereby. But there have been great men in our history whose lives have helped to lift up the ideal of a statesman, who have made such a sketch as Jethro outlined, though they may not have used his words, their polestar; and amongst the highest of these has been the man whose loss we to-day lament.
Let me try to vindicate that expression of opinion in a word or two. I cannot hope to vie in literary grace, or in completeness, with the eulogies that have been abundantly poured out; and I should not have thought it right to divert this hour of worship from its ordinary themes, if I had had no more to say than has been far better said a thousand times in these last days. But I cannot help noticing that, though there has been a consensus of admiration of, and a practically unanimous pointing to, character as after all the secret of the spell which Mr. Gladstone has exercised for two generations, there has not been, as it seems to me, equal and due prominence given to what was, and what he himself would have said was, the real root of his character and the productive cause of his achievements.
And so I venture now to say a word or two about the religion of the man that to his own consciousness underlay all the rest of him. It is not for me to speak, and there is no need to speak, about the marvellous natural endowments and the equally marvellous, many-sided equipment of attainment which enriched the rich, natural soil. Intermeddling as he did with all knowledge, he must necessarily have been but an amateur in many of the subjects into which he rushed with such generous eagerness. But none the less is the example of all but omnivorous acquisitiveness of everything that was to be known, a protest, very needful in these days, against the possible evils of an excessive specialising which the very progress of knowledge in all departments seems to make inevitable. I do not need to speak, either, of the flow, and sometimes the torrent, of eloquence ever at his command, nor of the lithe and sinewy force of his extraordinarily nimble, as well as massive, mind; nor need I say more than one word about the remarkable combination of qualities so generally held and seen to be incompatible, which put into one personality a genius for dry arithmetical figures and a genius for enthusiasm and sympathy with all the oppressed. All these things have been said far better than I can say them, and I do not repeat them.
But I desire to hammer this one conviction into your hearts and my own, that the inmost secret of that noble life, of all that wealth of capacity, all that load of learning, which he bore lightly like a flower, was the fact that the man was, to the very depths of his nature, a devout Christian. He would have been as capable, as eloquent, and all the rest of it, if he had been an unbeliever. But he would never have been nor done what he was and did, and he would never have left the dint of an impressive and lofty personality upon a whole nation and a world, if beneath the intellect there had not been character, and beneath character Christianity.
He was far removed, in ecclesiastical connections, from us Nonconformists, and he held opinions in regard to some very important ecclesiastical questions which cut straight across some of our deepest convictions. We never had to look for much favour from his hands, because his intellectual atmosphere removed him far from sympathy with many of the truths which are dearest to the members of the Free Evangelical Churches. But none the less we recognise in him a brother in Jesus Christ, and rejoice that there, on the high places of a careless and sceptical generation, there stood a Christian man.
In this connection I cannot but, though I have no right to do so, express how profoundly thankful I, for one, was to the present Prime Minister of England that in his brief eulogium on, I was going to say, his great rival, he ended all by the emphatic declaration that Mr. Gladstone was, first and foremost, a great Christian man. Yes; and there was the secret, as I have already said, not of his merely political eminence, but of the universal reverence which a nation expresses to-day. All detraction is silenced, and all calumnies have dropped away, as filth from the white wings of a swan as it soars, and with one voice the Empire and the world confess that he was a great and a good man.
I need not dwell in detail on the thoughts of how, by reason of this deep underlying fear of God, the other qualifications which are sketched in our ideal found their realisation in him; how those who, all through his career, smiled most at the successive enthusiasms which monopolised his mind, and sometimes at the contrasts between these, are now ready to admit that, whether the enthusiasms were right or wrong, there is something noble in the spectacle of a man ever keeping his mind, even when its windows were beginning to be dimmed by the frosts of age, open to the beams of new truth. And the greatest, as some people think, of his political blunders, as we are beginning, all of us, to recognise, now that party strife is hushed, was the direct consequence of that ever fresh and youthful enthusiasm for new thoughts and new lines of action. Innovators aged eighty are not too numerous.
Nor need I say more than one word about the other part of the ideal, ‘hating covetousness.’ The giver of peerages by the bushel died a commoner. The man that had everything at his command made no money, nor anything else, out of his long years of office, except the satisfaction of having been permitted to render what he believed to be the highest of service to the nation that he loved so well. Like our whilom neighbour, the other great commoner, John Bright, he lived among his own people; and like Samuel, of whom I have already spoken, he could stretch out his old hands and say, ‘They are clean.’ One scarcely feels as if, to such a life, a State funeral in Westminster Abbey was congruous. One had rather have seen him laid among the humble villagers who were his friends and companions, and in the quiet churchyard which his steps had so often traversed. But at all events the ideal was realised, and we all know what it was.
Might I say one word more? As this great figure passes out of men’s sight to nobler work, be sure, on widened horizons corresponding to his tutored and exercised powers, does he leave no lessons behind for us? He leaves one very plain, homely one, and that is, ‘Work while it is called to-day.’ No opulence of endowment tempted this man to indolence, and no poverty of endowment will excuse us for sloth. Work is the law of our lives; and the more highly we are gifted, the more are we bound to serve.
He leaves us another lesson. Follow convictions as they open before you, and never think that you have done growing, or have reached your final stage.
He leaves another lesson. Do not suppose that the Gospel of Jesus Christ cannot satisfy the keenest intellect, nor dominate the strongest will. It has come to be a mark of narrowness and fossilhood to be a devout believer in Christ and His Cross. Some of you young men make an easy reputation for cleverness and advanced thought by the short and simple process of disbelieving what your mother taught you. Here is a man, probably as great as you are, with as keen an intellect, and he clung to the Cross of Christ, and had for his favourite hymn-
‘Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.’
Moses leaves another lesson, as he glides into the past. ‘This man, having served his generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was gathered to his fathers, and saw corruption’; but He ‘whom God hath raised up saw no corruption.’ The lamps are quenched, the sun shines. Moses dies, ‘The prophets, do they live for ever?’ but when Moses and Elias faded from the Mount of Transfiguration ‘the apostles saw no man any more, save Jesus only,’ and the voice said, ‘This is My beloved Son; hear ye Him.’
1 Preached on occasion of Mr. Gladstone’s death.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
men. Hebrew, plural of ‘ish, or”enosh. App-14. to be. Supply “as” for Ellipsis (App-6).
rulers. Some codices, with Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint, and Syriac, read “and rulers”.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
fear
(See Scofield “Psa 19:9”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Moreover: Deu 1:13-17, Act 6:3
able men: Exo 18:25, Deu 16:18, 1Ki 3:9-12, Pro 28:2
such as: Exo 23:2-9, Gen 22:12, Gen 42:18, 2Sa 23:3, 1Ki 18:3, 1Ki 18:12, 2Ch 19:5-10, Neh 5:9, Neh 7:2, Ecc 12:13, Luk 18:2, Luk 18:4
men: Job 29:16, Job 31:13, Isa 16:5, Isa 59:4, Isa 59:14, Isa 59:15, Jer 5:1, Eze 18:8, Zec 7:9, Zec 8:16
hating: Exo 23:8, Deu 16:18, Deu 16:19, 1Sa 8:3, 1Sa 12:3, 1Sa 12:4, Psa 26:9, Psa 26:10, Isa 33:15, Eze 22:12, Act 20:33, 1Ti 3:3, 1Ti 6:9-11, 2Pe 2:14, 2Pe 2:15
rulers of thousands: Whatever matter the decarch, or ruler over ten, could not decide, went to the pentecontarch, or ruler of fifty, and thence by degrees to the hecatontarch, or ruler over a hundred, to the chiliarch, or ruler over a thousand, to Moses, and at length to God himself. Each magistrate had the care or inspection of only ten men; the decarch superintended ten private characters; the hecatontarch ten decarchs; and the chiliarch, ten hecatontarchs. Num 10:4, Deu 1:15, Jos 22:14, 1Sa 8:12
Reciprocal: Gen 47:6 – rulers Exo 21:6 – the judges Exo 22:9 – the cause of both parties Lev 4:22 – a ruler hath sinned Lev 19:15 – General Num 1:16 – heads Num 25:5 – judges Jos 22:21 – heads Jdg 6:15 – my family is poor Rth 4:2 – the elders 1Ki 4:2 – the princes 1Ch 12:20 – captains 2Ch 19:7 – let the Ezr 7:25 – set magistrates Psa 82:1 – God Psa 119:36 – and not to Pro 15:27 – but Pro 28:16 – he that Isa 3:3 – captain Jer 22:17 – covetousness Dan 6:1 – an Mic 5:2 – thousands Mal 3:5 – fear Eph 5:3 – covetousness
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
18:21 Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people {i} able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place [such] over them, [to be] rulers of thousands, [and] rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:
(i) What manner of men ought to be chosen to bear office.