Commento su Deuteronomio 9:15

SO I TURNED AND CAME DOWN FROM THE MOUNT. I have already explained in its place¹³²Ibid., Verse 11 (Vol. II, pp. 588-561). that before Moses came down from the mountain [and burned the calf] he prayed for them,¹³³Exodus 32:11-13. and, as a result of his prayer, it was said to him, And the Eternal repented of the evil which He said He would do unto His people.¹³⁴Ibid., Verse 14. The word “repented” here is an anthropomorphism (Ibn Ezra). Now, however, he did not mention it because he wanted to give them a [general] review of the great burden and suffering that he undertook for their sake — that they caused him to break the Tablets, to pray for them forty days and forty nights, and also to pray on behalf of Aaron because G-d was very angry with him.¹³⁵Further, Verse 20. Afterwards he mentioned the first supplication¹³⁶Ibid., Verses 25-29. with which he [immediately] before he came down from the mountain besought the face of the Eternal his G-d¹³⁷Exodus 32:11. not to destroy them.

וההר בוער באש, so that you actually committed the sin (golden calf) while the “King” i.e. the presence of the Shechinah, was actually still in your immediate vicinity.

ואפן וארד מן ההר, “I turned and descended from the Mountain;” Nachmanides writes that he has already explained that Moses had prayed on behalf on the people before beginning his descent from the Mountain, as we know from Exodus At the conclusion of that particular prayer G’d had already assured him that He had reconsidered His original intent to wipe out the whole nation. Moses, at this time, does not even refer to that prayer as he is intent on describing the 40 days of continuous pleading on behalf of the people, and even on behalf of Aaron, that he had spent on his return to the Mountain after he had shattered the Tablets 9,17, ואתפוש בשני הלוחות, “I grasped the two Tablets;” this too is part of the admonition, i.e. Moses described that he was unable to refrain from smashing the Tablets. He mentioned this as he wants to elaborate on the second set of Tablets, and what had occasioned the need for such a second set. It is also possible that he hinted at the favour he had done for the people at that time when he had risked immediate death by destroying G’d’s handiwork deliberately. He had done so for the sake of the people, as our sages explain in Shemot Rabbah 46 it is better to be convicted of infidelity while still only betrothed, than to be convicted after already being properly married. As long as the people had not received the Tablets, the final step in the nuptials between G’d and the people begun on the day of the revelation had not yet been taken.

V. 15. וההר בער באש, noch kündigte das Feuer auf dem Berge die göttliche Gegenwart an. — על שתי ידי: sie ruhten auf meinen beiden Händen, ich fasste sie nicht, hielt sie nicht, ich war nur ihr Träger und Bringer. Verschieden davon heißt es von den ihrem Stoffe nach dem Menschenwerk angehörenden zweiten Tafeln Kap. 10, 3: ושני הלוחת בידי —

ואפן וארד מן ההר, I turned around and descended from the Mountain,” on the same day, the seventeenth day in Tammuz.