So called from Senah, bush. This place will be always memorable, from the law having been delivered from it accompanied with thunderings and lightnings, and all the other awful demonstrations of the divine presence. Horeb, and Sinai, are not exactly one and the same, for they are evidently two distinct mountains. And as Sinai is at the east, and Horeb lies west, at sunrise (we are told by travellers) the right is very magnificent. Sinai is all shining, from the sun’s beams, and yet forming a shade on Horeb; so that the one isbright, and the other dark. Mount Sinai hath been always considered figurative of the blackness, and darkness, and terror of that dispensation which issued from it. And what the apostle, by commission from the Holy Ghost, said of it, Heb. 7: 18 - 21, plainly sets forth the cause. It was a mount, Paul saith, that "burned, with fire, and blackness, and darkness, and tempest f intimating the dread which must ever fill the soul at the delivery of the law, when the soul is filled with a conscious sense of having broken that law, andstands under the conviction of it, as yet unconscious of Christ. Moses himself tells us, that he exceedingly feared and quaked. There can be no enduring that which was commanded. Hence the apostle Paul (to the Galatian church, who seemed ignorant of this trembling of soul, who seemed ignorant from not having been sufficiently humbled under a sense of sin; and were running back to a covenant of works for justification, ) cries out, "Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?" (Gal. 4: 21.) As if hehad said, do ye not hear the awful threatenings to disobedience, and the total impossibility of being justified by the law? Such was, and is, and ever must be, mount Sinai in the church. What a blessedness that we are not come to it; but delivered from it, by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all!"
The "mountain of God" (Exodus 3) situated in the desert of Sinai between the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Akabah, on which the Law was given to Moses (Exodus 31). The Old Testament speaks of Mount Sinai and Mount Horeb as synonymous; some writers say they are two mountains of the same range. God appeared to Moses at Horeb, from a burning bush, and told him He wouid deliver the Israelites from the Egyptians (Exodus 3); after the Exodus, Moses smote water from a rock in Horeb (Exodus 17). Mount Sinai, however, is most famous as the places where Moses recieived the tablets of the Law and spent 40 days and 40 nights with God (Exodus 19).
The mountain located somewhere
on the Sinai Peninsula (the eastern
part of modern-day Egypt) where
God gave his laws to Moses and the
Israelites. Also called Mount Horeb. See
Ex. 19 and 20.
Sinai is the name of the mountain where God met Moses and gave him the Ten Commandments and the rest of the law. Older Bible translations sometimes use the name "Sina."
In addition to the mountain itself, name "Sinai" can refer to:
the desert around the mountain (Leviticus 7:38), and
the entire Sinai Peninsula, between the two arms of the Red Sea—the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba (or Elath).
The name "Sinai" is probably related to the wilderness of Sin, and may be an alternate spelling (compare Exodus 16:1; 17:1; Numbers 33:11–12). Sin was the name of an ancient moon god that people living in the desert worshiped. The mountain is also called Horeb, mostly in Deuteronomy (see also 1 Kings 8:9; 19:8; 2 Chronicles 5:10; Psalm 106:19; Malachi 4:4).
The traditional location of Mount Sinai is among the mountains at the southern end of the Sinai Peninsula. Since the 4th century, Christians have honored Jebel Musa (which means "Mount Moses" in Arabic) as the place where God formed the families of Jacob into the nation of Israel. At the base of this 2,286-meter (7,500-foot) peak is St. Catherine's Monastery. It is a Greek Orthodox monastery that has remained there for over 1,500 years.
Other possible sites for Mount Sinai include the nearby Jebel Katerina (which is 2,642 meters or 8,670 feet high) and Jebel Serbal (which is 2,072 meters or 6,800 feet high). Some scholars suggest a northern location near Kadesh-barnea. Others argue for a volcanic mountain across the gulf to the east in ancient Midian or Arabia (Exodus 3:1; Galatians 4:25).
Most references to Sinai appear in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. Sinai is referenced 13 times in Exodus, 5 times in Leviticus, and 12 times in Numbers. These books describe the giving of the law and the two-year camp of the Israelites on the plains next to the mountain. Exodus 19 and 34 are especially full of references because these chapters describe the meetings between Moses and God (Yahweh) when the law was given.
In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, Sinai represents the place where God came down to meet his people. Sinai was remembered as the location of that important meeting in:
the blessing of Moses (Deuteronomy 33:2),
the song of Deborah (Judges 5:5),
the confession of the Levites in the time of Nehemiah (Nehemiah 9:13), and
the speech of Stephen (Acts 7:30, 38).
In Galatians 4:21–26, the apostle Paul explains an allegory in which Mount Sinai represents the old covenant, slavery, and the present city of Jerusalem.
See Paran; Shur; Sin, Wilderness of; Commandments, The Ten; Wilderness Wanderings; Zin, Wilderness of.
Aquifer Open Bible Dictionary © 2026 Mission Mutual, an adaptation of the Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary © 2023 Tyndale House Publishers. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.