قَالَ رَبِّ إِنِّي ظَلَمْتُ نَفْسِي فَاغْفِرْ لِي فَغَفَرَ لَهُ ۚ إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ (16)
(28:16) Then he said, *23 "O my Lord, I have sinned against myself, so forgive me. " So, Allah forgave him: He is the All-Forgiving, the All-Merciful. *24
*23) What the Prophet Moses meant by this prayer was: "O my Lord, forgive this sin of mine, which you know I have not committed wilfully, and also cover and conceal it from the people."
*24) This has two meanings and both are implied here: Allah pardoned Moses' error as well as concealed his sin from the people so that neither any Egyptian nor any official of the Egyptian government passed that way at that time that he might witness the incident. So, the Prophet Moses got an opportunity to escape undetected from the place of the occurrence of murder.