The Hebrew Bible says Moses came to "the mountain of God" at Horeb (Exodus 3:1). Targum Onkelos specifies: "the mountain on which the Glory of God was revealed." The mountain is not divine. It is a stage for divine revelation. The distinction matters—in Onkelos's theology, no physical object is inherently sacred. Places become holy through what God chooses to do there.
When God appears in the burning bush, the Hebrew says "an angel of God appeared to him in a flame of fire" (Exodus 3:2). Onkelos renders it as the angel "became revealed"—consistent with his program of replacing physical appearance with conceptual revelation. Moses sees the bush burning but not consumed. He turns aside to investigate. And then God speaks.
"Take your shoes off your feet, because the place upon which you are standing is holy ground" (Exodus 3:5). Onkelos changes "holy ground" to "a holy place." Ground implies the earth itself is sacred. A place implies that sanctity is situational—it belongs to this moment and this encounter, not to the dirt.
The climactic moment arrives when Moses asks God's name. "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh"—"I Will Be What I Will Be" (Exodus 3:14). Onkelos does not translate this. He cannot translate it. The name stands in Hebrew within the Aramaic text, untouchable, irreducible. Some things are beyond the translator's reach. When God says "This is My eternal Name, and this is how I am to be mentioned for all generations" (Exodus 3:15), Onkelos renders it faithfully. The Name that cannot be translated is the Name that endures forever.