Deuteronomy 4:33

4:33 Have a people ever heard the voice of God speaking from the middle of fire, as you yourselves have, and lived to tell about it?

Deuteronomy 4:36

4:36 From heaven he spoke to you in order to teach you, and on earth he showed you his great fire from which you also heard his words. ¹ 

Deuteronomy 5:4

5:4 The Lord spoke face to face with you at the mountain, from the middle of the fire.

Deuteronomy 5:22

The Narrative of the Sinai Revelation and Israel’s Response

5:22 The Lord said these things to your entire assembly at the mountain from the middle of the fire, the cloud, and the darkness with a loud voice, and that was all he said. ²  Then he inscribed the words ³  on two stone tablets and gave them to me.

Acts 7:38

7:38 This is the man who was in the congregation ⁴  in the wilderness ⁵  with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors, ⁶  and he ⁷  received living oracles ⁸  to give to you. ⁹ 

Acts 7:53

7:53 You ¹⁰  received the law by decrees given by angels, ¹¹  but you did not obey ¹²  it.” ¹³ 

[4:36]  ¹ tn Heb “and his words you heard from the midst of the fire.”

[5:22]  ² tn Heb “and he added no more” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NLT “This was all he said at that time.”

[5:22]  ³ tn Heb “them”; the referent (the words spoken by the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:38]  ⁴ tn This term, ἐκκλησία (ekklhsia), is a secular use of the term that came to mean “church” in the epistles. Here a reference to an assembly is all that is intended.

[7:38]  ⁵ tn Or “desert.”

[7:38]  ⁶ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[7:38]  ⁷ tn Grk “fathers, who.” The relative pronoun was replaced by the pronoun “he” and a new clause introduced by “and” was begun in the translation at this point to improve the English style.

[7:38]  ⁸ tn Or “messages.” This is an allusion to the law given to Moses.

[7:38]  ⁹ tc ‡ The first person pronoun ἡμῖν (Jhmin, “to us”) is read by A C D E Ψ 33 1739 Ï lat sy, while the second person pronoun ὑμῖν (Jumin, “to you”) is read by Ì⁷⁴ א B 36 453 al co. The second person pronoun thus has significantly better external support. As well, ὑμῖν is a harder reading in this context, both because it is surrounded by first person pronouns and because Stephen perhaps “does not wish to disassociate himself from those who received God’s revelation in the past, but only from those who misinterpreted and disobeyed that revelation” (TCGNT 307). At the same time, Stephen does associate himself to some degree with his disobedient ancestors in v. 39, suggesting that the decisive break does not really come until v. 51 (where both his present audience and their ancestors are viewed as rebellious). Thus, both externally and internally ὑμῖν is the preferred reading.

[7:53]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “whose betrayers and murderers you have now become, who received the law” The two consecutive relative clauses make for awkward English style, so the second was begun as a new sentence with the pronoun “You” supplied in place of the Greek relative pronoun to make a complete sentence in English.

[7:53]  ¹¹ tn Traditionally, “as ordained by angels,” but εἰς (eis) with the accusative here should be understood as instrumental (a substitute for ἐν [en]); so BDAG 291 s.v. εἰς 9, BDF §206. Thus the phrase literally means “received the law by the decrees [orders] of angels” with the genitive understood as a subjective genitive, that is, the angels gave the decrees.

[7:53]  ¹² tn The Greek word φυλάσσω (fulassw, traditionally translated “keep”) in this context connotes preservation of and devotion to an object as well as obedience.

[7:53]  ¹³ tn Or “did not obey it.”