I fell down: The transgressions of the people rendered this second forty days' fasting necessary to Moses. Their pardon was indeed in some sense obtained before he ascended the mount; yet probably much of the time which he spent there was employed in supplication, and when he descended the second time, with the tables of the law in his hands, the pardon was, as it were, ratified and sealed. Deu 9:9; Exo 32:10-14, Exo 34:28; 2Sa 12:16; Psa 106:23