he spoke directly to Moses from the fire of the bush by the same mountain (Exod. 3). An important observation of Bandstra (1999) is that the centrality of Sinai is shown by the repetition of similar incidents before it and after it in the text. For example, the father-in-law of Moses appears immediately before Sinai (Exod. 18) and immediately after (Num. 10:29–32); there are incidents about manna (Exod. 16), quail (Exod. 16) and water (Exod. 17:1–7) before Sinai and after (Num. 11; 20:1–3); there
Page 101