Did Moses receive the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai or on Mount Horeb?

Sinai and Horeb are two names for the same mountain, or for the mountain and the range around it, and the Bible uses them interchangeably. Exodus itself uses both. God meets Moses at “the mountain of God, even to Horeb” (Exodus 3:1), and tells him that when he has brought the people out of Egypt, “ye shall serve God upon this mountain” (3:12). That promise is fulfilled at Sinai (19:1-2, 11). In the middle of the Sinai story, after the golden calf, Israel strips off its ornaments “by the mount Horeb” (33:6). A psalm does the same: “They made a calf in Horeb” (Psalm 106:19), though Exodus places the calf at Sinai.

Deuteronomy mostly says Horeb (1:6; 4:10, 15; 5:2), but Moses’ blessing at its end says “The Lord came from Sinai” (33:2), and Nehemiah, looking back on the giving of the law, says Sinai (Nehemiah 9:13). The writers were not thinking of two mountains, any more than someone contradicts himself by calling the same city ‘London’ and ‘the capital’. Many commentators, including Keil and Delitzsch, take Horeb as the name of the whole group of mountains in the south of the peninsula, and Sinai as the particular mountain on which God came down. Others think Horeb, which means ‘dry’ or ‘desert’ place, was simply another name for Sinai. Either way, both names point to one place.

Where the mountain stands is debated. Tradition since early Christian times places it at Jebel Musa in the south of the Sinai peninsula, but some scholars argue for sites in the Negev, the northern Sinai or north-west Arabia. Many critical scholars explain the two names by different sources behind the Pentateuch; the books themselves use both names of the same mountain.