Forgive the sin of this people according to the greatness of Your kindness, just as You have forgiven this people from Mitzrayim until now.[1]
When you first think about this argument, you rub your eyes in disbelief. Essentially it tells Hashem: “Look, we’ve been here before. Every other time that we really blew it, You decided to forgive us. Why is this time any different? It worked before; surely it can work again! Why not just forgive us, which always worked previously?” Can this really be what Moshe is saying – as if there is no limit on how long people can fail and sin, without any expectation of consequences?
In truth, Moshe was on to something. There was consistency in the failures of the Bnei Yisrael of this generation. Every time that they faced some new challenge, they pointed a finger at Moshe! “You led us out of Egypt, into the path of danger, when we could have stayed safely behind. You brought us to this horrible place where there is no water to drink.”[2] Why did they revert to the same thinking each time, holding Moshe responsible for their predicament?
The reason is that they could not bring themselves to believe in the (true) alternative – that Hashem brought it upon them, so that He could lovingly extricate them from it! They saw themselves as tainted by their sins, going back to their avodah zarah in Mitzrayim. They did not deserve miraculous intervention by G-d, they thought. Therefore, their problems must have been the result of Moshe’s bad decisions.
Essentially, they failed to comprehend the ways of Hashem, especially that He would stand by His commitment to the avos. In His love for them, He promised that He would deliver their children from bondage, give them the Torah, and take them securely into the Land. This failure to understand the dimensions of His love for them was the reason as well that they balked at entering the Land. They never thought that Hashem lacked the strength to quash their enemies and give them the Land. They understood that He could easily take care of their enemies. Instead, they doubted that they had sufficient merit that He would exercise His power on their behalf.
They thus had a good excuse for repeatedly questioning whether He would be there for them. Each previous time they had sinned, Hashem excused them, because He accepted that they were not rebelling against him, but were enmeshed in guilt. Things were no different now. Moshe asked Him to forgive them “just as [He had] forgiven this people from Mitzrayim until now,” i.e., for precisely the same reason that He excused them before. Moshe underscores this: “according to the greatness of Your kindness.” The Bnei Yisrael were correct in their feelings of inadequacy. They indeed did not have the zechusim for the Divine assistance He showed them in the past. He nonetheless safeguarded them simply because of the greatness of His chesed!
Moreover, the phrase ka’asher nasasa l’am hazeh can be understood in two ways. Nasasa can mean forgave, as is commonly translated. The word, however, also means bore, carried, lifted. Moshe tells Hashem that to a certain extend He carries the sins of Bnei Yisrael upon Himself! The abundance of His love was the source of their behavior. They didn’t grasp it – and therefore blamed Moshe for getting them into a situation whose only exit was Divine intervention that they felt they did not merit.