Yithro's plan for restructuring Israel's judicial system was built on precise mathematics. He told Moses to appoint "officers of thousands, officers of hundreds, officers of fifties, and officers of tens" (Exodus 18:21). The Mekhilta works out exactly what this meant in practice.
The population of Israel at this time was six hundred thousand men of military age. Dividing that number into groups of one thousand yields six hundred officers of thousands. Dividing into groups of one hundred yields six thousand officers of hundreds. Dividing into groups of fifty yields twelve thousand officers of fifties. And dividing into groups of ten yields sixty thousand officers of tens.
The total number of officers across all four tiers: seventy-eight thousand and six hundred. That is an enormous judicial infrastructure — roughly one judge for every eight Israelites. Yithro was not proposing a minor delegation of authority. He was proposing the creation of an entire bureaucratic system, a layered hierarchy of courts that could handle disputes at every level of complexity.
The genius of the system was that most cases would never reach Moses. An officer of tens could resolve a simple dispute between neighbors. An officer of fifties could handle more complex matters. Only the most difficult cases — "the hard things," as the Torah calls them — would be escalated up the chain until they reached Moses himself. This freed Moses to focus on what only he could do: receive the Torah from God and teach it to the nation.