The Targum on Exodus 24:16 preserves a detail that the plain text rushes past. The glory of the Lord's Shekhinah rested on Mount Sinai, and the Cloud of Glory covered it for six full days. Only on the seventh did God call to Moses from the midst of the cloud.
Six days of waiting. Six days in which Moses stood at the base of the mountain, watching the cloud burn and shift, hearing nothing. The Sages of the Talmud (Yoma 4b) wrestle with what those days were for. One view says the cloud was cleansing Moses, stripping away the last residue of earthly food and ordinary speech so he could stand in the presence of the Holy One. Another says the days were a preparation in the opposite direction: God was giving Moses time to decide whether he truly wanted to enter.
The Targum does not explain. It simply lingers on the number. Six and then seven. The rhythm is unmistakable. It is the rhythm of creation, where six days of labor open out into Shabbat. Moses's ascent is cast as a second Genesis. What came into being in six days of silence was not a world but a prophet ready to receive the Torah.
When the voice finally came on the seventh day, it called Moses by name, out of the fire and out of the cloud. He had not been abandoned in those six days. He had been formed by them.
Every Shabbat rehearses this pattern. The week of labor is not empty waiting. It is the making of the one who will finally hear the call.