Sinai: The Mountain on Fire

Three months after leaving Egypt, the Israelites camp in the wilderness of Sinai, at the foot of the mountain. God tells Moses to prepare the people: wash their clothes, set limits around the base of the mountain, be ready on the third day. Any person or animal that touches the mountain will be put to death — it is not a threat but a statement of danger, the way you would warn someone away from a live current.

On the morning of the third day, there is thunder and lightning and a thick cloud over the mountain. A trumpet blast so loud that all the people in the camp tremble. Moses leads the people to the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai is wrapped in smoke because the Lord has descended on it in fire. The smoke rises like the smoke of a furnace. The whole mountain shakes violently. The trumpet grows louder and louder.

God speaks the Ten Words — the Decalogue — directly to the assembled people. They begin not with a command but a declaration of identity: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. The liberation is the ground of the law. The covenant relationship is prior to the obligation. Only then come the prohibitions: no other gods, no graven images, no taking the divine name lightly, remember the Sabbath. Then the obligations toward other people: honor parents, do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not covet.

The people, watching the thunder and lightning, the smoke and the sound of the trumpet, are terrified. They stand at a distance and say to Moses: You speak to us and we will listen. But let God not speak to us, or we will die. Moses answers: Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that fear of him will be with you to keep you from sinning. He goes into the thick darkness where God is.

From that thick darkness come the detailed laws that fill the rest of Exodus. The theophany is singular: fire and cloud and the voice of God heard by six hundred thousand. Nothing like it is described again.