Yahweh our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.
Parallel translations
- KJV The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.
- BSB The LORD our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.
- NKJV The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.
- NASB The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.
- NLT “The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Mount Sinai.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Yahweh made a covenant with Israel at Horeb (Sinai). The relationship rests on God's covenant initiative.
Overview
Moses recalls the Horeb covenant as the foundation of Israel's relationship with God. The covenant frames all the commandments that follow as the terms of a bond God established. This covenant structure points forward to the new covenant Christ inaugurates in his blood (Luke 22:20).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Deut 4:23Be careful, lest you forget the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he made with you, and make yourselves an engraved image in the form of anything which Yahweh your God has forbidden you.
- Exod 19:5–8Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice, and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession from among all peoples; for all the earth is mine;
- Exod 24:8Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, “Look, this is the blood of the covenant, which Yahweh has made with you concerning all these words.”
- Heb 8:6–13But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, by so much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant, which on better promises has been given as law.
- Heb 9:19–23For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people,
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Moses promised a Prophet like himself to whom Israel must listen (18:15); Jesus is that Prophet, the one who keeps the covenant we broke and becomes the curse for us by hanging on a tree (Gal 3:13).
How Deuteronomy 5:2 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.