Another matter: “I pleaded with the Lord” – this is what the verse said: “You chastise a man with punishments for iniquity, consuming his delight like a moth. Surely man is mere nothingness” (Psalms 39:12). What is “with punishments for iniquity”? Because of one iniquity that Moses performed, that he chastised Your children and said to them: “Hear now defiant ones” (Numbers 20:10), You afflicted him and rebuked him.
“A man” is none other than Moses, as it is stated: “The man Moses was very humble” (Numbers 12:3). What is “consuming his delight like a moth”? All the delight that Moses desired, to enter the Land [of Israel], You caused to be consumed, like a moth that gets into garments and causes them to rot. “His delight” is nothing other than the Land of Israel, like the matter that is stated: “And give you a land of delight…” (Jeremiah 3:19).
If that is what befell the righteous Moses, all the more are the rest of the people destined for nothingness and destined for the Day of Judgment. “Surely man is mere nothingness” – Rav Aḥa said: He that became a god [elo’ah], as it is stated: “I have put you as a god [elohim] for Pharaoh” (Exodus 7:1), is now pleading and prostrating himself: “I pleaded with the Lord.”