Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. The descent of God in fire is the most dramatic theophany in the Old Testament. The mountain shakes; the smoke billows like a furnace. Isaiah 6:4 describes the doorposts of the temple shaking at the voice of the seraphim. The violence of the mountain's trembling — the same Hebrew word used for earthquakes — places the divine descent in the category of cosmic events. The fire that descended on Sinai will later descend on the tabernacle to consecrate it (Leviticus 9:24) and on the Pentecost gathering to inaugurate the church (Acts 2:3). Fire from God marks the transitions between covenant eras.

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