(11) The Lord God of your fathers . . . bless you.--This appears to belong distinctly to the Book of Deuteronomy. It can hardly be a record of what was spoken long before. It brings the living speaker before us in a way that precludes imitation.
Verse 11. - It was not the vast increase of the people in numbers that distressed Moses, rather was this to him a matter of rejoicing, and his desire was that their increase might become still greater, even a thousandfold. But he felt his own inability, as leader, ruler, and judge, alone to cope with so vast a multitude.
1:9-18 Moses reminds the people of the happy constitution of their government, which might make them all safe and easy, if it was not their own fault. He owns the fulfilment of God's promise to Abraham, and prays for the further accomplishment of it. We are not straitened in the power and goodness of God; why should we be straitened in our own faith and hope? Good laws were given to the Israelites, and good men were to see to the execution of them, which showed God's goodness to them, and the care of Moses.
The Lord God of your fathers make you a thousand times so many more as ye are,.... This prayer he made, or this blessing he pronounced on them, to show that he did not envy their increase, nor was any ways uneasy at it, but rejoiced in it, though he gave it as a reason of his not being able to govern them alone:
and bless you, as he hath promised you: with all kind of blessings, as he had often promised their fathers.
and bless you, as he hath promised you: with all kind of blessings, as he had often promised their fathers.