Exodus 4:27

4:27 The Lord said ¹  to Aaron, “Go to the wilderness to meet Moses. So he went and met him at the mountain of God ²  and greeted him with a kiss. ³ 

Exodus 18:5

18:5 Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, together with Moses’ ⁴  sons and his wife, came to Moses in the desert where he was camping by ⁵  the mountain of God. ⁶ 

Exodus 19:3

19:3 Moses ⁷  went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, “Thus you will tell the house of Jacob, and declare to the people ⁸  of Israel:

Exodus 19:11

19:11 and be ready for the third day, for on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.

Exodus 20:18

20:18 All the people were seeing ⁹  the thundering and the lightning, and heard ¹⁰  the sound of the horn, and saw ¹¹  the mountain smoking – and when ¹²  the people saw it they trembled with fear ¹³  and kept their distance. ¹⁴ 

Exodus 24:16

24:16 The glory of the Lord resided ¹⁵  on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days. ¹⁶  On the seventh day he called to Moses from within the cloud.

Exodus 31:18

31:18 He gave Moses two tablets of testimony when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, tablets of stone written by the finger of God. ¹⁷ 

Exodus 32:15

32:15 Moses turned and went down from the mountain with ¹⁸  the two tablets of the testimony in his hands. The tablets were written on both sides – they were written on the front and on the back.

Exodus 34:32

34:32 After this all the Israelites approached, and he commanded them all that the Lord had spoken to him on Mount Sinai.

[4:27]  ¹ tn Heb “And Yahweh said.”

[4:27]  ² tn S. R. Driver considers that this verse is a continuation of vv. 17 and 18 and that Aaron met Moses before Moses started back to Egypt (Exodus, 33). The first verb, then, might have the nuance of a past perfect: Yahweh had said.

[4:27]  ³ tn Heb “and kissed him.”

[18:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:5]  ⁵ tn This is an adverbial accusative that defines the place (see GKC 373-74 §118.g).

[18:5]  ⁶ sn The mountain of God is Horeb, and so the desert here must be the Sinai desert by it. But chap. 19 suggests that they left Rephidim to go the 24 miles to Sinai. It may be that this chapter fits in chronologically after the move to Sinai, but was placed here thematically. W. C. Kaiser defends the present location of the story by responding to other reasons for the change given by Lightfoot, but does not deal with the travel locations (W. C. Kaiser, Jr., “Exodus,” EBC 2:411).

[19:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “and Moses went up.”

[19:3]  ⁸ tn This expression is normally translated as “Israelites” in this translation, but because in this place it is parallel to “the house of Jacob” it seemed better to offer a fuller rendering.

[20:18]  ¹⁰ tn The participle is used here for durative action in the past time (GKC 359 §116.o).

[20:18]  ¹¹ tn The verb “to see” (רָאָה, ra’ah) refers to seeing with all the senses, or perceiving. W. C. Kaiser suggests that this is an example of the figure of speech called zeugma because the verb “saw” yokes together two objects, one that suits the verb and the other that does not. So, the verb “heard” is inserted here to clarify (“Exodus,” EBC 2:427).

[20:18]  ¹² tn The verb “saw” is supplied here because it is expected in English (see the previous note on “heard”).

[20:18]  ¹³ tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated as a temporal clause to the following clause, which receives the prominence.

[20:18]  ¹⁴ tn The meaning of נוּעַ (nua’) is “to shake, sway to and fro” in fear. Compare Isa 7:2 – “and his heart shook…as the trees of the forest shake with the wind.”

[20:18]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and they stood from/at a distance.”

[24:16]  ¹³ sn The verb is וַיִּשְׁכֹּן (vayyishkon, “and dwelt, abode”). From this is derived the epithet “the Shekinah Glory,” the dwelling or abiding glory. The “glory of Yahweh” was a display visible at a distance, clearly in view of the Israelites. To them it was like a consuming fire in the midst of the cloud that covered the mountain. That fire indicated that Yahweh wished to accept their sacrifice, as if it were a pleasant aroma to him, as Leviticus would say. This “appearance” indicated that the phenomena represented a shimmer of the likeness of his glory (B. Jacob, Exodus, 749). The verb, according to U. Cassuto (Exodus, 316), also gives an inkling of the next section of the book, the building of the “tabernacle,” the dwelling place, the מִשְׁכָּן (mishkan). The vision of the glory of Yahweh confirmed the authority of the revelation of the Law given to Israel. This chapter is the climax of God’s bringing people into covenant with himself, the completion of his revelation to them, a completion that is authenticated with the miraculous. It ends with the mediator going up in the clouds to be with God, and the people down below eagerly awaiting his return. The message of the whole chapter could be worded this way: Those whom God sanctifies by the blood of the covenant and instructs by the book of the covenant may enjoy fellowship with him and anticipate a far more glorious fellowship. So too in the NT the commandments and teachings of Jesus are confirmed by his miraculous deeds and by his glorious manifestation on the Mount of the Transfiguration, where a few who represented the disciples would see his glory and be able to teach others. The people of the new covenant have been brought into fellowship with God through the blood of the covenant; they wait eagerly for his return from heaven in the clouds.

[24:16]  ¹⁴ tn This is an adverbial accusative of time.

[31:18]  ¹⁶ sn The expression “the finger of God” has come up before in the book, in the plagues (Exod 8:15) to express that it was a demonstration of the power and authority of God. So here too the commandments given to Moses on stone tablets came from God. It too is a bold anthropomorphism; to attribute such a material action to Yahweh would have been thought provoking to say the least. But by using “God” and by stating it in an obviously figurative way, balance is maintained. Since no one writes with one finger, the expression simply says that the Law came directly from God.

[32:15]  ¹⁹ tn The disjunctive vav (ו) serves here as a circumstantial clause indicator.