TO THROW ONESELF DOWN — the reflexive of naphal, to fall, and the difference is the whole word: this is not falling but felling oneself, a deliberate collapse. It is the posture Moses describes three times in one chapter (Deuteronomy 9:18 and twice at v25, already on these pages), each time for forty days and forty nights, and each time as the thing he did INSTEAD of eating and drinking. ⚠ It is worth distinguishing from the ordinary worship verb hishtachavah, to bow down: bowing is what one does before a king, and this is closer to what a person does when the case is lost and the only argument left is the body. → first discussed at Deut 9:18