Discovery BoxExodus 19:2 
Context19:2 After they journeyed 1 from Rephidim, they came to the Desert of Sinai, and they camped in the desert; Israel camped there in front of the mountain. 2
Exodus 34:3
Context34:3 No one is to come up with you; do not let anyone be seen anywhere on the mountain; not even the flocks or the herds may graze in front of that mountain.”
Exodus 39:6
Context39:6 They set the onyx stones in gold filigree settings, engraved as with the engravings of a seal 3 with the names of the sons of Israel. 4
1 tn The form is a preterite with vav (ו) consecutive, “and they journeyed.” It is here subordinated to the next clause as a temporal clause. But since the action of this temporal clause preceded the actions recorded in v. 1, a translation of “after” will keep the sequence in order. Verse 2 adds details to the summary in v. 1.
2 sn The mountain is Mount Sinai, the mountain of God, the place where God had met and called Moses and had promised that they would be here to worship him. If this mountain is Jebel Musa, the traditional site of Sinai, then the plain in front of it would be Er-Rahah, about a mile and a half long by half a mile wide, fronting the mountain on the NW side (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 169). The plain itself is about 5000 feet above sea level. A mountain on the west side of the Arabian Peninsula has also been suggested as a possible site.
3 tn Or “as seals are engraved.”
4 sn The twelve names were those of Israel’s sons. The idea was not the remembrance of the twelve sons as such, but the twelve tribes that bore their names.
