Deuteronomy 9 · a question people ask
Was Moses on the mountain for forty days twice, or three times?
Deuteronomy speaks of forty days and forty nights at three points in the story. The first is plain: "I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights" (9:9), and "at the end of forty days and forty nights" the LORD gave him the tablets (9:11). After the calf, Moses says, "I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights" (9:18), and again, "the forty days and forty nights that I fell down" (9:25). Then, after the LORD tells him to cut two new tablets (10:1-5), he says, "I stayed on the mountain, as at the first time, forty days and forty nights; and the LORD listened to me that time also" (10:10). Exodus names two stays of forty days (Exodus 24:18, 34:28). The text gives no dates, and it doesn't say whether 9:18 and 10:10 speak of the same forty days. Both readings below keep what Moses says: he neither ate nor drank (9:9, 9:18), he prayed for the people and for Aaron (9:20, 9:26), and "the LORD listened to me that time also" (9:19). Each rests on verses.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
Two stays, the second told twice
Those who hold this view note that 9:18-19 and 10:10 are told in close words: "as at the first" (9:18) and "as at the first time" (10:10), and "the LORD listened to me that time also" in both (9:19, 10:10). Exodus names only two stays of forty days, and the second has no bread or water (Exodus 34:28), as 9:18 does. On this reading, the forty days Moses fell down (9:18, 9:25) are the stay with the new tablets (10:10; Exodus 34:28), told first as the prayer and then as the tablets.
Deuteronomy 9:18-19 · Deuteronomy 10:10 · Exodus 24:18 · Exodus 34:28
A third forty days, before the new tablets
Those who hold this view follow the order Moses tells it in. The forty days of 9:18 come right after the tablets are broken (9:17), and the LORD's word to cut new tablets comes after the prayer (10:1). Exodus too has Moses go back to the LORD after the calf, "On the next day", to plead for the people (Exodus 32:30-32), before the LORD says, "Chisel two stone tablets like the first" (Exodus 34:1). On this reading, Moses fell down forty days to pray (9:18, 9:25), and then was on the mountain another forty days with the new tablets (10:10; Exodus 34:28).
Deuteronomy 9:17-18 · Deuteronomy 10:1 · Exodus 32:30-32 · Exodus 34:1 · Exodus 34:28
The verses
“When I had gone up onto the mountain to receive the stone tablets, even the tablets of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. The LORD delivered to me the two stone tablets written with God’s finger. On them were all the words which the LORD spoke with you on the mountain out of the middle of the fire in the day of the assembly. It came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights that the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, even the tablets of the covenant.”
“I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you sinned, in doing that which was evil in the LORD’s sight, to provoke him to anger. For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the LORD was angry against you to destroy you. But the LORD listened to me that time also.”
“So I fell down before the LORD the forty days and forty nights that I fell down, because the LORD had said he would destroy you.”
“I stayed on the mountain, as at the first time, forty days and forty nights; and the LORD listened to me that time also. The LORD would not destroy you.”