And, from all the people, you shall look for capable men who are G-d-fearing, men of truth, haters of unjust gain, and you shall place upon them officers of thousands, officers of hundreds, officers of fifties, and officers of tens.
The Torah specifies that Moshe should be the one to appoint these judges, not Klal Yisroel. If they were democratically elected, they would be beholden to Klal Yisroel. Now that Moshe was the one to appoint them, they were the emissaries of Moshe, and he would have the power to influence them. He also hinted that Moshe would stay the judge of Klal Yisroel, with the merits of his emissaries counted towards his account.
He was told to do so מִכׇּל הָעָם – from the entire nation. Even if he would find someone who seemed worthy on his own, Moshe’s job was to find the best the nation had, someone who had all of the traits enumerated in the possuk, and in the best possible way.
The possuk then tells us the four traits that these judges were to possess: אַנְשֵׁי חַיִּל יִּרְ אֵׁי אֱ לוקים אַנְשֵׁי אֱמֶת שֹׂנְאֵׁי בָּצַע - capable men who are God-fearing, men of truth, and haters of unjust gain. The Ohr Hachaim explains that these four attributed are parralel to the four jobs that Yisro introduced: שָּרֵׁי אֲלָּפִּים שָּרֵׁי מֵׁאוֹת שָּרֵׁי חֲמִּשִּים וְשָּרֵׁי עֲשָּרֹׂת - officers of thousands, officers of hundreds, officers of fifties, and officers of tens.
The first trait - אַנְשֵׁי חַיִּל – is for the people who were officers of thousands. These people needed to be extremely capable, who have refined their midos with perfection, and are pleasant, easygoing people.
The second one - יִּרְ אֵׁי אֱ לוקים – is referring to the officers of the hundreds. All they needed was fear of Heaven. They needed to be fearful of Hashem’s punishment that He promised to those who sin. Someone whose fear of Heaven is based on the four-letter name of Hashem is connected to Hashem through His compassion and mercy. Such a person may make the mistake of thinking they can do whatever they want, as Hashem will surely forgive them. This is why they need to be יִּ רְ אֵׁי אֱ לוקים – people who are fearful of Hashem with His attribute of strict justice. These people are scared to commit any aveiros because they know that Hashem judges the world with strict accuracy.
The next level of judges, those that are officers of fifties, do not need to be on this level of fear of Heaven, but they must be אַנְשֵׁי אֱמֶת, honest people. They must be people who seek and know truth, because otherwise there is no justice whatsoever.
The lowest level, the שָּרֵׁי עֲשָּרֹׂת, only needed to be שֹׂנְאֵׁי בָּצַע - haters of unjust gain. Those who seek riches in a dishonest fashion, even if they overcome their natural tendency and do not actually steal, cannot be a judge, even of ten people.
Of course, the attributes are in descending order, and the אַנְשֵׁי חַיִּל must also be יִּרְ אֵׁי אֱ לוקים, אַנְשֵׁי אֱמֶת, and שֹׂנְאֵׁי בָּצַע. These traits are included. This is why they are written without a וי"ו for each one of them. If they had a וי"ו between them, we would think that all of them required all four attributes at once. Yisro did not expect Moshe to find sufficient people with all of the attributes to serve in all of the functions.
However, when it came to actually finding these judges, the possuk writes לׇּכִּמ לִּיַח יֵׁשְנַא הֶשֹׂמ רַחְב יַו יִּ שְרָּאֵׁל - Moshe chose capable men from all of Israel. Moshe managed to find enough אַנְשֵׁי חַיִל to fill all of the jobs, and he didn’t have to compromise at all.
