How can I alone bear your problems and your burdens and your complaints?
Parallel translations
- WEB How can I myself alone bear your problems, your burdens, and your strife?
- KJV How can I myself alone bear your cumbrance, and your burden, and your strife?
- BSB But how can I bear your troubles, burdens, and disputes all by myself?
- NASB How can I alone endure the burden and weight of you and your strife?
- NLT But you are such a heavy load to carry! How can I deal with all your problems and bickering?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Moses asks how he can bear the people's problems, burdens, and disputes alone. The rhetorical question justifies appointing helpers to share the load.
Overview
Moses frames the practical need for shared leadership in terms of the real weight of the people's troubles and conflicts. Leadership in a fallen world involves bearing burdens and adjudicating strife, a task too heavy for one man. The verse honors the dignity of delegated, accountable authority and reminds us that only Christ, the sin-bearer, can ultimately carry the full weight of His people's burdens.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- 2 Cor 3:5not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God;
- 2 Cor 2:16to the one a stench from death to death; to the other a sweet aroma from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?
- Num 11:11–15Moses said to Yahweh, “Why have you treated with your servant so badly? Why haven’t I found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me?
- Deut 1:9I spoke to you at that time, saying, “I am not able to bear you myself alone.
- 1 Kgs 3:7–9Now, Yahweh my God, you have made your servant king instead of David my father. I am just a little child. I don’t know how to go out or come in.
- Ps 89:19Then you spoke in vision to your saints, and said, “I have given strength to the warrior. I have exalted a young man from the people.
- Exod 18:13–16On the next day, Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from the morning to the evening.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Moses promised a Prophet like himself to whom Israel must listen (18:15); Jesus is that Prophet, the one who keeps the covenant we broke and becomes the curse for us by hanging on a tree (Gal 3:13).
How Deuteronomy 1:12 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.