Thus I fell down before the LORD forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; because the LORD had said he would destroy you.
Thus I fell down before the Lord ... as I fell down at the first. After the enumeration of various acts of rebellion, he had mentioned the outbreak at Kadesh-barnea, which, on a superficial reading of this verse, would seem to have led Moses to a third and protracted season of humiliation. But on a comparison of this passage with Numbers 14:5, the subject and language of this prayer show that only the second act of intercession (Deuteronomy 9:18) is now described in fuller detail.