8 Look, I've given you this land. Now go in and take it. It's the land God promised to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their children after them."
9 At the time I told you, "I can't do this, can't carry you all by myself. 10 God, your God, has multiplied your numbers. Why, look at you - you rival the stars in the sky! 11 And may God, the God-of-Your-Fathers, keep it up and multiply you another thousand times, bless you just as he promised.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:8-11
Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:1-8
(Read Deuteronomy 1:1-8)
Moses spake to the people all the Lord had given him in commandment. Horeb was but eleven days distant from Kadesh-barnea. This was to remind them that their own bad conduct had occasioned their tedious wanderings; that they might the more readily understand the advantages of obedience. They must now go forward. Though God brings his people into trouble and affliction, he knows when they have been tried long enough. When God commands us to go forward in our Christian course, he sets the heavenly Canaan before us for our encouragement.
Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:9-18
(Read Deuteronomy 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.