Prayer for the Stay of Judgement

Deuteronomy 9:20-29

One more than one occasion, divine judgement was to be directed at the Israelites as a group, or at specific individuals. Moses recounts one occasion (attended by the golden cow idol) where he interceded in prayer- twice.

And the Lord was very angry with Aaron, angry enough to have destroyed him, and I prayed for Aaron also at the same time.

...

You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.

So I fell down and lay prostrate before the Lord forty days and nights because the Lord had said He would destroy you.

And I prayed to the Lord: O Lord God, do not destroy Your people and Your heritage, whom You have redeemed through Your greatness, whom You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

Remember [earnestly] Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not at the stubbornness of this people or at their wickedness or at their sin, lest the land from which You brought us out say, Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land which He promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.

Yet they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your mighty power and by Your outstretched arm.

At first glance, it looks as if Moses is trying to pressure God into agreement by announcing what other people might think.  But after comparing what God claimed He would do for His people, I think this is more a matter of Moses "praying God's Word back to Him."

And that has echoes from the New Testament where Jesus explains that he does the things he sees his Father doing, and he says the things he hears the Father say.