Deuteronomy 9:25
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 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 forty days and forty nights is the record of Moses' second forty days and forty nights fallen down before the Lord because the Lord had said He would destroy Israel, recalling his first falling down and earlier forty-day intercession. This second period of forty days, like the first, was spent in intercession asking God to spare the people for their sin.
The greater weight places this falling down after Israel's refusal to enter Canaan following the spies' report, when God had said He would destroy the people. Beside it stands that it took place in the mount after Israel worshiped the golden calf, after Moses had broken the first tables of stone and interceded for the people.
In that intercession Moses appealed to God's past care and patience, to mercy for the sake of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to the danger that the Egyptians would conclude God could not bring Israel into the promised land. God heard Moses' intercession. The event shows the value of intercessory prayer and encourages prayer for one's country, for renewed religion, and for sinners in danger.
After Moses broke the first tables, God told him to hew a second set of tables and bring them into the mount, and at the end of this second forty-day period Moses received from the Lord a second copy of the law written on stone. Thus the Sabbath shares with the other nine precepts the honor of being once publicly proclaimed by the voice of God from Sinai and twice written by the finger of God.