The Hebrew Bible says God "descended upon" Mount Sinai in fire (Exodus 19:18). Targum Onkelos will not allow God to descend. He writes: "God became revealed upon it in fire." The mountain trembles. The smoke rises like a furnace. The shofar blast grows louder and louder. But God does not move from heaven to earth. God's presence is manifested, not relocated.
This is Onkelos's most consequential translation choice in the entire Torah. Sinai is the foundational theophany—the moment when God speaks directly to an entire nation. If God "descends," then God occupies space, has a location, moves from point A to point B. If God "becomes revealed," then God is everywhere already, and what changes is not God's position but Israel's perception.
The preparation for revelation is translated with care. "Let them be ready for the third day" (Exodus 19:11). "Set bounds for the people around the mountain" (Exodus 19:12). "Do not come near a woman" (Exodus 19:15). Onkelos preserves all the physical requirements—clean clothes, sexual abstinence, boundaries around the mountain—because these are human obligations, not divine ones. The people must prepare. God simply reveals.
Moses "brought the people toward God" (Exodus 19:17). Onkelos renders this as Moses bringing the people "toward the Divine Presence" or "the Word of God." The people did not approach God Himself. They approached the zone where God's presence was made manifest. They stood at the foot of the mountain while fire, smoke, and the voice of the shofar announced that the boundary between heaven and earth had become, for this one moment, permeable.