Comentário sobre Êxodo 34:28

AND HE WAS THERE WITH THE ETERNAL FORTY DAYS AND FORTY NIGHTS… AND HE WROTE UPON THE TABLETS THE WORDS OF THE COVENANT, THE TEN WORDS. The verse is stating that Moses was on top of the mountain for forty days and forty nights, and he wrote there upon the Tablets. And in the opinion of our Rabbis⁵⁴²Shemoth Rabbah 47:12. the meaning of the verse is that Moses was there with G-d for forty days and forty nights,⁵⁴³From the first of Ellul to the tenth of Tishri, which is the Day of Atonement. during which time He wrote on the Tablets the words of this second covenant. But he had stayed there for another forty days⁵⁴⁴From the nineteenth of Tammuz to the twenty-ninth of Ab. prior to these to pray for all his requests, as is narrated in the section beginning, See, Thou sayest unto me: Bring up this people;⁵⁴⁵Above, 33:12. and with reference to these days it is said in the Book of Deuteronomy, So I fell down before the Eternal the forty days and forty nights that I fell down; because the Eternal had said He would destroy you.⁵⁴⁶Deuteronomy 9:25. Here, however, Scripture did not explain how many days were the duration of this period of supplication and prayer, for it is known that it was from the time he went up to the mountain until he came down to hew the second Tablets.⁵⁴⁷This was on the first day of Ellul (see Ramban above, 33:7). Having hewn the Tablets, he went up to the mountain and stayed until the tenth of Tishri. From this we learn that the forty-day period of prayer preceded it, which brings it to the days between the nineteenth of Tammuz and the twenty-ninth of Ab. But it said that the matter of the second Tablets was like that of the first in every respect — the writing of G-d, and the number of days he stood before G-d, so that he should not think that he had already learned the Torah during the first time, and that therefore it would not be necessary for him to stay there many days.

'ויהי שם עם ה, his third and final 40 day stay there..

לחם לא אכלתי, "I did not eat bread, etc." The reason that the Torah specified that Moses ate neither bread nor drank water was to make us aware that he did absorb nutrients of a different kind. He absorbed spiritual food. We find something of that nature in Psalms 40,9 where David speaks about תורתך בתוך מעי, "Your Torah being in my entrails." Torah is also compared to water in Taanit 7. Had the Torah merely written: "he neither ate not drank," this would have included all kinds of "food."