'Fire' in the Bible

who went before you along the way, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to seek a place for you to make camp and to show you the way in which you should go.

You approached and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the [very] heart of the heavens: darkness, cloud and thick gloom.

Then the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of the words, but you saw no form—there was only a voice.

“So pay attention and watch yourselves carefully—for you did not see any form [of God] on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire—

For the Lord your God is a consuming fire; He is a jealous (impassioned) God [demanding what is rightfully and uniquely His].

Did [any] people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you heard, and [still] live?

Out of the heavens He let you hear His voice to discipline and admonish you; and on earth He let you see His great fire, and you heard His words from the midst of the fire.

The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain from the midst of the fire.

I was standing between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord; for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain. He said,

“The Lord spoke these words with a great voice to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, and He added no more. He wrote these commandments on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.

And when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you approached me, all the leaders (heads) of your tribes and your elders;

and you said, ‘Behold, the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he [still] lives.

Now then why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer, then we will die.

For who is there of all flesh (mankind) who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived?

But this is how you shall deal with them: you shall tear down their altars and smash to pieces their sacred pillars, and cut down their Asherim (symbols of the goddess Asherah), and burn their carved or sculpted images in the fire.

You shall burn the carved and sculpted images of their gods in the fire. You shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, so that you will not be ensnared by it [in a deadly trap], for it is an abomination (repulsive) to the Lord your God.

So know today [with confident assurance] that the Lord your God is crossing [the Jordan] before you like a devouring fire. He will destroy them and He will subdue them before you, and you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, just as the Lord has promised you.

The Lord gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God; and on them were written all the words which the Lord had spoken to you at the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly.

“So I turned and came down from the mountain while the mountain was burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.

I took your sinful thing, the calf which you had made, and burned it in the fire and thoroughly crushed it, grinding the metal thoroughly until it was as fine as dust; and I threw its dust into the brook that came down from the mountain.

The Lord wrote on the tablets, like the first writing, the Ten Commandments which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly; then the Lord gave them to me.

You shall tear down their altars and smash their [idolatrous] pillars and burn their Asherim in the fire; you shall cut down the carved and sculpted images of their gods and obliterate their name from that place.

You shall not behave this way toward the Lord your God, for they have done for their gods every repulsive thing which the Lord hates; for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire [as sacrifices] to their gods.

Then you shall collect all its spoil (plunder) into the middle of its open square and burn the city and set fire to the spoil as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It shall be a ruin forever. It shall not be built again.

“The Levitical priests, the entire tribe of Levi, shall own [privately] no portion [of land] or inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the Lord’s offerings by fire and His portion.

There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire [as a sacrifice], one who uses divination and fortune-telling, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer,

This is according to all that you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb (Mount Sinai) on the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear the voice of the Lord my God again, nor see this great fire anymore, so that I will not die.’

‘For a fire is kindled by My anger,And it burns to the depths of Sheol (the place of the dead, the nether world),It devours the earth with its yield,And sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.

He said,“The Lord came from Sinai,And dawned on them from Seir;He shone forth from Mount Paran,And He came from among ten thousand holy ones;At His right hand was a flaming fire, a law, for them.