Yahweh came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. Yahweh called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.
Parallel Translations
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Yahweh came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. Yahweh called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.
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And the LORD came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the LORD called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up.
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And the LORD came down upon mount Sinai, to the top of the mount; and the LORD called Moses to the top of the mount; and Moses went up.
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (9)
Passages linked to Exodus 19:20 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Nehemiah 9:13 “You also came down on Mount Sinai, and spoke with them from heaven, and gave them right ordinances and true laws, good statutes and commandments,
- Exodus 19:3 Moses went up to God, and Yahweh called to him out of the mountain, saying, “This is what you shall tell the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel:
- Exodus 19:11 and be ready for the third day; for on the third day Yahweh will come down in the sight of all the people on Mount Sinai.
- Exodus 24:12-13 Yahweh said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain, and stay here, and I will give you the stone tablets with the law and the commands that I have written, that you may teach them.” Moses rose up with Joshua, his servant, and Moses went up onto God’s Mountain.
- Exodus 24:18 Moses entered into the middle of the cloud, and went up on the mountain; and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
- Exodus 34:2 Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain.
- Exodus 34:4 He chiseled two tablets of stone like the first; then Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up to Mount Sinai, as Yahweh had commanded him, and took in his hand two stone tablets.
- Psalms 81:7 You called in trouble, and I delivered you. I answered you in the secret place of thunder. I tested you at the waters of Meribah.”
- Deuteronomy 9:9 When I had gone up onto the mountain to receive the stone tablets, even the tablets of the covenant which Yahweh made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Exo 19:20 And the LORD came down upon mount…
Exo 19:20 And the LORD came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the LORD called Moses [up] to the top of the mount; and Moses went up.
Ver. 20. And Moses went up.] As a mediator between God and his people. {Gal 3:19 Act 7:38} A mediator Moses was, not of redemption, as Christ that "Mediator of the new covenant" and "surety of a better testament," {Heb 7:22; Heb 9:15} but of receiving the law, and delivering it to the people, for which end here he went up.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain So here are three parts of the mount manifestly…
So here are three parts of the mount manifestly distinguished; the top, where the cloud was; the middle part, where Moses now stood, and about which the bounds seem to have been put; and the nether or lower part, where the people were.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And the Lord came down on Mount Sinai,.... In…
And the Lord came down on Mount Sinai,.... In the above visible tokens of his presence and power; otherwise he is the incomprehensible Jehovah, that immense and omnipotent Being, who fills heaven and earth, and cannot be contained and circumscribed in either:
on the top of the mount; where the fire he descended in rested, and where the smoke and thick cloud were, as a token of his presence:
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and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mount; who either was at the bottom of it with the people, or in a higher ascent of it between God and them:
and Moses went up; to the top of it, where the Lord was, as he ordered him: a certain traveller (y) tells us that the top of this mount was scarce thirty feet in circumference.
(y) Baumgarten Peregrinatio, l. 1. c. 24. p. 61.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 20. The Lord came down] This was undoubtedly…
Verse 20. The Lord came down] This was undoubtedly done in a visible manner, that the people might witness the awful appearance. We may suppose that every thing was arranged thus: the glory of the Lord occupied the top of the mountain, and near to this Moses was permitted to approach. Aaron and the seventy elders were permitted to advance some way up the mountain, while the people were only permitted to come up to its base. Moses, as the lawgiver, was to receive the statutes and judgments from God's mouth; Aaron and the elders were to receive them from Moses, and deliver them to the people; and the people were to act according to the direction received. Nothing can be imagined more glorious, terrible, majestic, and impressive, than the whole of this transaction; but it was chiefly calculated to impress deep reverence, religious fear, and sacred awe; and he who attempts to worship God uninfluenced by these, has neither a proper sense of the Divine majesty, nor of the sinfulness of sin. It seems in reference to this that the apostle says, Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with REVERENCE and GODLY FEAR: for our God is a CONSUMING FIRE; Heb 12:28-29. Who then shall dare to approach him in his own name and without a mediator?
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 20. The Lord came down — In the midst…
20. The Lord came down — In the midst of the sublime exhibitions of his power and splendour mentioned above; though not so that the Israelites saw any likeness or similitude of Jehovah. See Deu_4:12; Deu_4:15.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 20. came down] according to v. 18, Jehovah had…
20. came down] according to v. 18, Jehovah had already done this. Perhaps (Bä.) v. 18 is misplaced, and stood originally after v. 20a.
20–25. After the theophany has begun (vv. 18, 20a), Moses is summoned to the top of the mountain, where he is told to go down again at once and check the too eager curiosity of the people, and when he has done this to come up again with Aaron (v. 24). In E the people, so far from evincing any desire to trespass upon the mountain, are in alarm, and ‘tremble’ (v. 16; cf. Exo_20:18).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (20) On the top of the mount.—On the summit…
(20) On the top of the mount.—On the summit of the Ras Sufsafeh, not on the Jebel Musa, which is out of sight from the plain of Er Rahah.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On the top of the mount. Not, probably, on…
On the top of the mount. Not, probably, on the highest point of the Sinaitic group, the Jebel Musa, which is out of sight from the plain Er-Rahah, where the Israelites must have been assembled; but on the highest part of the face of Sinai fronting that plain, the Ras Sufsafeh, which would be to the Israelites at the base "the top of the mount." The Lord called Moses up. Perhaps with Aaron, who certainly accompanied him when he next ascended (ver. 24), and who seems to be glanced at in the phrase used at the end of ver. 23
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.