Mount Sinai

The sacred mountain where God revealed Himself to Moses in fire and cloud, gave the Ten Commandments and the Law, and established His covenant with Israel. Sinai represents the foundational moment when Israel received their identity as God’s chosen people and the moral framework that would govern their relationship with Him.

Three months after the Exodus from Egypt, Israel camped before Mount Sinai (also called Horeb, “the mountain of God”). God commanded Moses: “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments 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 19:10-11). On the appointed day, “there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled” (Exodus 19:16).

From the smoking, quaking mountain, God spoke the Ten Commandments directly to all Israel—the only time in Scripture when God addressed an entire nation audibly (Exodus 20:1-17). The people, terrified by God’s manifest presence, begged Moses to mediate: “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die” (Exodus 20:19). Moses then ascended into the cloud covering the summit, where he received the detailed laws and instructions that form the Torah. He remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights, receiving the tablets of stone “written with the finger of God” (Exodus 31:18).

During Moses’ absence on the mountain, Israel’s faithlessness was revealed when they pressured Aaron to fashion the golden calf, declaring “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” (Exodus 32:4). God’s anger burned against them, but Moses interceded and, after descending and smashing the first tablets in righteous fury, returned to the mountain to receive the Law again. This pattern—God’s revelation, Israel’s rebellion, Moses’ mediation—would characterize the wilderness period.

Centuries later, Elijah fled to Horeb/Sinai when threatened by Jezebel. There God appeared to him not in earthquake or fire but in “a low whisper” (1 Kings 19:12), recommissioning him and tempering his zealous despair with grace. The mountain thus served as a place where both Moses and Elijah encountered God’s glory—both prophets later appearing with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration.