Bible Strands
Deuteronomy 9:18
Then I fell down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, as I had done the first time. I did not eat bread or drink water because of all the sin you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD and provoking Him to anger.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Moses addresses Israel, recounting his actions immediately after shattering the stone tablets before their eyes. He describes a prolonged period of fasting and prostration following the people's idolatry.
The words — The Hebrew אֶתְנַפַּל ('et.nap.pal) denotes a full prostration, paired with before the LORD (לִפְנֵי יְהוָה). The text explicitly links this posture to the people's evil deeds that provoked divine anger.
The thread — This forty-day and forty-night fast mirrors Moses' initial ascent to receive the tablets (Deuteronomy 9:9) and echoes his later renewal of the covenant (Exodus 34:28). Psalm 106:23 later references this intercession as the breach Moses stood in to divert destruction.
Why it lands — The text records a leader's physical denial of sustenance in direct response to corporate rebellion. It demands recognition that prolonged, self-denying intercession is the prescribed response to provoking divine wrath.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger.
Cross-references
- Exodus 34:28 So Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.
- Deuteronomy 9:9 When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread and drank no water.
- Psalms 106:23 So He said He would destroy them—had not Moses His chosen one stood before Him in the breach to divert His wrath from destroying them.
- Exodus 32:10 Now leave Me alone, so that My anger may burn against them and consume them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
- Deuteronomy 10:10 I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights, like the first time, and that time the LORD again listened to me and agreed not to destroy you.
- 2 Samuel 12:16 David pleaded with God for the boy. He fasted and went into his house and spent the night lying in sackcloth on the ground.