Wind scoured the bare face of the mountain as dust twisted skyward and the sun scorched the stone like a forge. Even the ibex and hawks kept their distance. But the pilgrim did not pause. His sandals scraped across the granite, worn smooth by centuries of bare feet, passing the shapes of ancient inscriptions—Nabataean, Greek, and Arabic—each a layer in the mountain’s memory.
The mountain rose as though it had broken its back straining toward the heavens. Locals called it Jebel Musa—the Mountain of Moses. Among the Bedouin, stories passed from grandfather to child spoke of fire from heaven, a voice like thunder, and law carved by smoke-cloaked hands. In the old scrolls of Exodus, it had another name: Sinai. “And Mount Sinai was altogether in a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire” (Exodus 19:18).
He reached the plateau as twilight bled across the stone. There, nestled against the crags, stood the monastery—Byzantine bones wrapped in sixth-century walls, its age palpable in pitted stones and soot-charred icons. St. Catherine’s Monastery had stood since the rule of Emperor Justinian I, who founded it to protect the monks who had long claimed the mountain as sacred ground. Legend held that this was the very site of the Burning Bush, the place where the invisible God first gave Moses a voice and a mission.
Here, Greek Orthodox monks kept vigil in stillness, passing down prayers older than any empire. Inside the chapel, walls shimmered with golden mosaics, a Christ Pantocrator staring heavenward with eyes of enduring sorrow. Beneath the altar, a marble slab marked the relics of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, a martyr whose body, carried by angels, had reportedly appeared atop the mountain centuries after her death. Even her bones, it was said, carried the scent of myrrh.
But it was not the relics that drew the pilgrim. His eyes never once sought the painted saints or solid gold chandeliers. He came for the summit—the knife-edge where stories declared Moses received the tablets of the law not once, but twice, the second time after smashing the first in fury at Israel’s idol-making betrayal (Exodus 32:19; 34:1). There, among the raw heights, flesh had trembled before divinity.
The climb resumed under stars. The final path serpentined along jagged ridges, a trial of breath and silence. Wind howled louder than memory. At last, the peak unfolded. No altar. No monument. Only stone and sky—and silence so deep it crushed thought.
And then the lightning came.
A fork of silver streaked down, illuminating the mountaintop in stark contrast. It split against a far ridge with a crack that reverberated like the echo of Sinai’s ancient thunder. Lightning struck the mountain often, the monks had said—a curious pattern for this one barren peak. Geologists spoke of quartz veins and magnetic anomalies, but others whispered of heaven’s fingerprints.
He knelt.
It had been seventeen years since that stillborn cry. His daughter, the only child they could ever hope for, lost before first breath. His wife had wept for years in silence. His own anger, unspoken, had settled deep like a stone. He had come here, not for penance, not for a miracle, but to listen.
Was this the voice Moses feared—loud as fire and law, or quiet as Elijah’s whisper on another mountain? When Moses climbed Sinai, he was already old. He had murder in his past, excuses on his tongue, and yet God had set His voice into fire.
Now, centuries later, the pilgrim bowed low as another bolt cracked the sky. Here, unshielded by sanctuary, stripped of pretense, he waited for the silence between lightning.
He remembered the Scripture read to him by the monk before he climbed: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). A psalm from another hill in another time, yet somehow burning under this same sky.
Other climbers would come again, many as he had—grieving, hoping, doubting, searching. The path was brutal, the air thin, but the silence at the crown—the silence after fire—could warm even the coldest chest.
When he descended at dawn, the mountain behind him wept gold against the horizon. The stones seemed less harsh. He passed a row of old olive trees guarding the entrance to the monastery, their roots nestled in soil blessed by a thousand footsteps. The monks would already be stirring—lighting candles, brewing sweet coffee, silent in their chants.
The lightning would come again. Whether heaven’s echo or mere skyfire, only the mountain knew.
Still, each year, pilgrims returned to ascend this spine of stone. Some came seeking answers. Others, only silence. But all left marked—and not by the burn of sun or wind.
On this mountain, where God had once spoken, lightning still found its way down.
Wind scoured the bare face of the mountain as dust twisted skyward and the sun scorched the stone like a forge. Even the ibex and hawks kept their distance. But the pilgrim did not pause. His sandals scraped across the granite, worn smooth by centuries of bare feet, passing the shapes of ancient inscriptions—Nabataean, Greek, and Arabic—each a layer in the mountain’s memory.
The mountain rose as though it had broken its back straining toward the heavens. Locals called it Jebel Musa—the Mountain of Moses. Among the Bedouin, stories passed from grandfather to child spoke of fire from heaven, a voice like thunder, and law carved by smoke-cloaked hands. In the old scrolls of Exodus, it had another name: Sinai. “And Mount Sinai was altogether in a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire” (Exodus 19:18).
He reached the plateau as twilight bled across the stone. There, nestled against the crags, stood the monastery—Byzantine bones wrapped in sixth-century walls, its age palpable in pitted stones and soot-charred icons. St. Catherine’s Monastery had stood since the rule of Emperor Justinian I, who founded it to protect the monks who had long claimed the mountain as sacred ground. Legend held that this was the very site of the Burning Bush, the place where the invisible God first gave Moses a voice and a mission.
Here, Greek Orthodox monks kept vigil in stillness, passing down prayers older than any empire. Inside the chapel, walls shimmered with golden mosaics, a Christ Pantocrator staring heavenward with eyes of enduring sorrow. Beneath the altar, a marble slab marked the relics of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, a martyr whose body, carried by angels, had reportedly appeared atop the mountain centuries after her death. Even her bones, it was said, carried the scent of myrrh.
But it was not the relics that drew the pilgrim. His eyes never once sought the painted saints or solid gold chandeliers. He came for the summit—the knife-edge where stories declared Moses received the tablets of the law not once, but twice, the second time after smashing the first in fury at Israel’s idol-making betrayal (Exodus 32:19; 34:1). There, among the raw heights, flesh had trembled before divinity.
The climb resumed under stars. The final path serpentined along jagged ridges, a trial of breath and silence. Wind howled louder than memory. At last, the peak unfolded. No altar. No monument. Only stone and sky—and silence so deep it crushed thought.
And then the lightning came.
A fork of silver streaked down, illuminating the mountaintop in stark contrast. It split against a far ridge with a crack that reverberated like the echo of Sinai’s ancient thunder. Lightning struck the mountain often, the monks had said—a curious pattern for this one barren peak. Geologists spoke of quartz veins and magnetic anomalies, but others whispered of heaven’s fingerprints.
He knelt.
It had been seventeen years since that stillborn cry. His daughter, the only child they could ever hope for, lost before first breath. His wife had wept for years in silence. His own anger, unspoken, had settled deep like a stone. He had come here, not for penance, not for a miracle, but to listen.
Was this the voice Moses feared—loud as fire and law, or quiet as Elijah’s whisper on another mountain? When Moses climbed Sinai, he was already old. He had murder in his past, excuses on his tongue, and yet God had set His voice into fire.
Now, centuries later, the pilgrim bowed low as another bolt cracked the sky. Here, unshielded by sanctuary, stripped of pretense, he waited for the silence between lightning.
He remembered the Scripture read to him by the monk before he climbed: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). A psalm from another hill in another time, yet somehow burning under this same sky.
Other climbers would come again, many as he had—grieving, hoping, doubting, searching. The path was brutal, the air thin, but the silence at the crown—the silence after fire—could warm even the coldest chest.
When he descended at dawn, the mountain behind him wept gold against the horizon. The stones seemed less harsh. He passed a row of old olive trees guarding the entrance to the monastery, their roots nestled in soil blessed by a thousand footsteps. The monks would already be stirring—lighting candles, brewing sweet coffee, silent in their chants.
The lightning would come again. Whether heaven’s echo or mere skyfire, only the mountain knew.
Still, each year, pilgrims returned to ascend this spine of stone. Some came seeking answers. Others, only silence. But all left marked—and not by the burn of sun or wind.
On this mountain, where God had once spoken, lightning still found its way down.
