Place
Mount Sinai
Also known as Horeb · Jebel Musa (traditional) · Har Sinai
The mountain where, according to Exodus, Moses received the Law from God; its precise geographical identification is debated.
exoduslawtheophanydebated-content
Where it is
- Modern name
- Jebel Musa (traditional); alternative sites debated
- Country
- Egypt (traditional site) / Saudi Arabia (Jebel al-Lawz proposal)
- Coordinates
- 28.5392° N, 33.9758° E
- Region
- Sinai Peninsula (traditional)
- Kind of place
- Mountain
- Era
- Exodus period; specific location debated
Mount Sinai in Scripture
38 verses name it — all of them- Exodus 3:1Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to the mountain of God, unto Horeb.
- Exodus 17:6Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.
- Exodus 19:11and be ready against the third day; for the third day Jehovah will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai.
- Exodus 19:18And mount Sinai, the whole of it, smoked, because Jehovah descended upon it in fire; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.
- Exodus 19:20And Jehovah came down upon mount Sinai, to the top of the mount: and Jehovah called Moses to the top of the mount; and Moses went up.
- Exodus 19:23And Moses said unto Jehovah, The people cannot come up to mount Sinai: for thou didst charge us, saying, Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it.
- Exodus 24:16And the glory of Jehovah abode upon mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days: and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud.
- Exodus 31:18And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, the two tables of the testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.
- Exodus 33:6And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments from mount Horeb onward.
- Exodus 34:2And be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me on the top of the mount.
- Exodus 34:4And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as Jehovah had commanded him, and took in his hand two tables of stone.
- Exodus 34:29And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of the testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses knew not that the skin of his face shone by reason of his speaking with him.
- Exodus 34:32And afterward all the children of Israel came nigh: and he gave them in commandment all that Jehovah had spoken with him in mount Sinai.
- Leviticus 7:38which Jehovah commanded Moses in mount Sinai, in the day that he commanded the children of Israel to offer their oblations unto Jehovah, in the wilderness of Sinai.
- Leviticus 25:1And Jehovah spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying,
- Leviticus 26:46These are the statutes and ordinances and laws, which Jehovah made between him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by Moses.
- Leviticus 27:34These are the commandments, which Jehovah commanded Moses for the children of Israel in mount Sinai.
- Numbers 3:1Now these are the generations of Aaron and Moses in the day that Jehovah spake with Moses in mount Sinai.
- Numbers 28:6It is a continual burnt-offering, which was ordained in mount Sinai for a sweet savor, an offering made by fire unto Jehovah.
- Deuteronomy 1:2It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir unto Kadesh-barnea.
- Deuteronomy 1:6Jehovah our God spake unto us in Horeb, saying, Ye have dwelt long enough in this mountain:
- Deuteronomy 1:19And we journeyed from Horeb, and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which ye saw, by the way to the hill-country of the Amorites, as Jehovah our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.
- Deuteronomy 4:10the day that thou stoodest before Jehovah thy God in Horeb, when Jehovah said unto me, Assemble me the people, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children.
- Deuteronomy 4:15Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of form on the day that Jehovah spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire;
- Deuteronomy 5:2Jehovah our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.
- Deuteronomy 9:8Also in Horeb ye provoked Jehovah to wrath, and Jehovah was angry with you to destroy you.
- Deuteronomy 18:16according to all that thou desiredst of Jehovah thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of Jehovah my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not.
- Deuteronomy 29:1These are the words of the covenant which Jehovah commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.
- 1 Kings 8:9There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone which Moses put there at Horeb, when Jehovah made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt.
- 1 Kings 19:8And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.
- 2 Chronicles 5:10There was nothing in the ark save the two tables which Moses put there at Horeb, when Jehovah made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of Egypt.
- Nehemiah 9:13Thou camest down also upon mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right ordinances and true laws, good statutes and commandments,
- Psalms 106:19They made a calf in Horeb, And worshipped a molten image.
- Malachi 4:4Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, even statutes and ordinances.
- Acts 7:30And when forty years were fulfilled, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush.
- Acts 7:38This is he that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel that spake to him in the mount Sinai, and with our fathers: who received living oracles to give unto us:
- Galatians 4:24Which things contain an allegory: for these women are two covenants; one from mount Sinai, bearing children unto bondage, which is Hagar.
- Galatians 4:25Now this Hagar is mount Sinai in Arabia and answereth to the Jerusalem that now is: for she is in bondage with her children.
The account
Mount Sinai (called Horeb in Deuteronomy and some other passages) is the mountain on which Moses encountered the burning bush (Exodus 3), to which Israel was led after the Exodus, and where the covenant and Law were given (Exodus 19–24). Its exact physical location is uncertain and is one of the most long-debated geographic questions in biblical scholarship. The traditional site since at least the 4th century CE is Jebel Musa in the southern Sinai Peninsula (site of St. Catherine's Monastery, a UNESCO World Heritage Site). Alternative proposals include Jebel al-Lawz in northwestern Saudi Arabia (advocated most prominently in popular literature by Ron Wyatt and others; not accepted by most mainstream scholars), Jebel Serbal and Jebel Sin Bishar in Egypt, and Har Karkom in the Negev (proposed by Emmanuel Anati). The reference works cited below survey the full range of proposals. This page surfaces the ambiguity explicitly; pick-a-side claims are out of scope per Vision v2 §4.1.
Where this leads
from Mount Sinai- Exodusnames it 13 times
- Deuteronomynames it 9 times
- Leviticusnames it 4 times
- 1 Kingsnames it 2 times
- Actsnames it 2 times
- Galatiansnames it 2 times
- Ahabnamed in this place's story
- Mosesnamed in this place's story
- Elijahnamed in this place's story
- The Atlasthe published maps of the biblical world
- Every placethe whole gazetteer
Sources (4)
- Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897): Sinai · accessed 2026-04-17Public domain.
- ISBE (1915): Sinai, Mount · accessed 2026-04-17Public domain; surveys competing site proposals.
- Wikipedia: Biblical Mount Sinai · accessed 2026-04-17CC-BY-SA; surveys all major proposed locations.
- UNESCO: Saint Catherine Area · accessed 2026-04-17Traditional site at Jebel Musa.