ספר דברים

Deuteronomy 9,21. “and (the object of) your sin that ‎you fashioned, the golden calf, and in Taveyrah, and at ‎Massah, ‎‏ ‏‎ and when Hashem sent you out from Kadesh ‎Barnea, etc, .you have repeatedly been defiant toward the ‎Lord. When I lay prostrate before the Lord, etc.; etc,” ‎It appears difficult to understand why Moses who had begun ‎in verse 18 to describe his prostrating himself before the Lord ‎after the sin of the golden calf, after reciting numerous other sins ‎of the Jewish people, once more continues with recounting his ‎pleas for his people while prostrate before G’d in verse 25.‎I believe that in order to understand Moses better, we must ‎revert to the text of the Torah in Exodus 32,7 where G’d tells ‎Moses to descend from the Mountain because the people had ‎made themselves a golden calf as a symbol of G’d. At that time G’d ‎had told Moses not to intervene by pleading for the people in ‎order that He could proceed with annihilating them. (Exodus ‎‎32,10) At that time Moses had ignored G’d’s “suggestion,” and ‎had immediately begun pleading for the survival of the Jewish ‎people, the Torah’s report commencing with the words: ‎ויחל משה ‏וגו'‏‎, “Moses implored, etc.”‎Nachmanides on this verse points out that seeing that Moses ‎had pleaded immediately when G’d had told him to leave Him ‎alone “at that moment,” i.e. ‎ועתה הניחה לי‎, G’d responded by ‎‎“forgiving” the people, i.e. (32,14). Seeing that G’d had ‎‎“forgiven,” why did Moses spend 40 days on the Mountain after ‎having destroyed the evidence of the sin in order to obtain G’d’s ‎forgiveness, as he tells us in this paragraph when he refers to a ‎second stay on Mount Sinai during which time he neither ate ‎bread nor drank water for 40 consecutive days? (9,18) Moses ‎attributes that stay to his fear that G’d was still angry at the ‎people!‎Nachmanides on this verse points out that seeing that Moses ‎had pleaded immediately when G’d had told him to leave Him ‎alone “at that moment,” i.e. ‎ועתה הניחה לי‎, G’d responded by ‎‎“forgiving” the people, i.e. (32,14). Seeing that G’d had ‎‎“forgiven,” why did Moses spend 40 days on the Mountain after ‎having destroyed the evidence of the sin in order to obtain G’d’s ‎forgiveness, as he tells us in this paragraph when he refers to a ‎second stay on Mount Sinai during which time he neither ate ‎bread nor drank water for 40 consecutive days? (9,18) Moses ‎attributes that stay to his fear that G’d was still angry at the ‎people!‎