Mount Sinai, all it, smoked, because Yahweh descended on it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly.
⛓ Read Exodus 19 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion1
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
'A great earthquake' (seismos) recalls the theophany at Sinai where the whole mountain quaked greatly at the LORD's descent. Matthew uses earthquake as a recurring sign of divine intervention (cf. 27:51), framing the resurrection as a world-shaking act of God.
Medium confidenceEcho6
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
Verse 31, 'the place was shaken where they were gathered,' echoes the Sinai theophany where the whole mountain trembled greatly at God's descent (Exod 19:18). The shaking as a sign of God's answering presence and the Spirit-filling that follows cohere with theophanic precedent.
Medium confidence‘Whose voice shook the earth then’ (v. 26) recalls the quaking of Sinai at the theophany, Exod 19:18 (‘the whole mountain quaked greatly’). Medium volume; the earth-shaking at the giving of the law is what Haggai's ‘yet once more’ is set against, making this the implied precursor event.
Medium confidenceSinai theophany: the mountain's 'smoke went up like the smoke of a furnace' (LXX hos kapnos kaminou). The same furnace-smoke phrase as Rev 9:2; a Sinai/judgment-theophany overtone alongside the Genesis 19 link. Identifying the exact source is difficult since the simile is stock OT idiom.
Medium confidenceThe 'smoke' (kapnos) among the apocalyptic signs (v.19) may resonate with the smoke of Sinai where 'the mountain was wholly in smoke' at the theophany, reinforcing the Sinai-Pentecost frame. Low volume and the wording is governed by Joel; contested.
Low confidenceThe quaking of Sinai at God's descent supplies the theophany-as-earthquake background; the prison earthquake signals God's powerful presence. Thematic resonance, generic earthquake-theophany.
Low confidenceSinai 'wrapped in smoke (kapnos LXX), because the LORD descended on it in fire... and the smoke went up' - theophanic smoke; a secondary background to 'smoke from the glory of God' alongside Isa 6:4. Faint, the people likewise barred from approach (Exod 19:21-23).
Low confidence