Deuteronomy 1:33

1:33 the one who was constantly going before you to find places for you to set up camp. He appeared by fire at night and cloud by day, to show you the way you ought to go.

Deuteronomy 5:5

5:5 (I was standing between the Lord and you at that time to reveal to you the message of the Lord, because you were afraid of the fire and would not go up the mountain.) He said:

Deuteronomy 5:26

5:26 Who is there from the entire human race who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the middle of the fire as we have, and has lived?

Deuteronomy 9:3

9:3 Understand today that the Lord your God who goes before you is a devouring fire; he will defeat and subdue them before you. You will dispossess and destroy them quickly just as he has told you.

Deuteronomy 9:10

9:10 The Lord gave me the two stone tablets, written by the very finger of God, and on them was everything he said to you at the mountain from the midst of the fire at the time of that assembly.

Deuteronomy 10:4

10:4 The Lord then wrote on the tablets the same words, the ten commandments, which he 10  had spoken to you at the mountain from the middle of the fire at the time of that assembly, and he 11  gave them to me.

Deuteronomy 32:22

32:22 For a fire has been kindled by my anger,

and it burns to lowest Sheol; 12 

it consumes the earth and its produce,

and ignites the foundations of the mountains.


tn Or “word” (so KJV, NASB, NIV); NRSV “words.”

tn Heb “who is there of all flesh.”

tn Heb “the Lord.” The pronoun has been used in the translation in keeping with contemporary English style to avoid redundancy.

sn The very finger of God. This is a double figure of speech (1) in which God is ascribed human features (anthropomorphism) and (2) in which a part stands for the whole (synecdoche). That is, God, as Spirit, has no literal finger nor, if he had, would he write with his finger. Rather, the sense is that God himself – not Moses in any way – was responsible for the composition of the Ten Commandments (cf. Exod 31:18; 32:16; 34:1).

tn Heb “according to all the words.”

tn Heb “the Lord” (likewise at the beginning of vv. 12, 13). See note on “he” in 9:3.

tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

tn Heb “according to the former writing.” See note on the phrase “the same words” in v. 2.

tn Heb “ten words.” The “Ten Commandments” are known in Hebrew as the “Ten Words,” which in Greek became the “Decalogue.”

10 tn Heb “the Lord.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

11 tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” earlier in this verse.

12 tn Or “to the lowest depths of the earth”; cf. NAB “to the depths of the nether world”; NIV “to the realm of death below”; NLT “to the depths of the grave.”

sn Sheol refers here not to hell and hell-fire – a much later concept – but to the innermost parts of the earth, as low down as one could get. The parallel with “the foundations of the mountains” makes this clear (cf. Pss 9:17; 16:10; 139:8; Isa 14:9, 15; Amos 9:2).