Deuteronomy 4:11

11 And ye nighed to the root of the hill, that burnt till to heaven; and darknesses, and cloud, and mist were therein. (And ye came near, and stood at the foot of the mountain, that burned unto the heavens; and darkness, and cloud, and mist were on that mountain.)

Deuteronomy 4:11 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 4:11

And ye came near and stood under the mountain
At the foot of it, in the lower part of the mountain, as the Targum of Jonathan, and agrees with ( Exodus 19:17 )

and the mountain burnt with fire unto the midst of heaven;
the flame and smoke went up into the middle of the air: with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness; which thick darkness was occasioned partly by the smoke, which went up like the smoke of a furnace, and partly by the thick clouds, which were on the mount, and covered the face of the heavens, which were black and tempestuous with them; the Septuagint renders it a "tempest", ( Exodus 19:18 ) ( Hebrews 12:18 ) , which denotes the obscurity of the law, and the terrors it works in the minds of men.

Deuteronomy 4:11 In-Context

9 Therefore keep thyself, and thy soul busily; forget thou not the words which thine eyes have seen, and fall they not down from thine heart, in all the days of thy life. Thou shalt teach those (to) thy sons, and thy sons? sons. (And so guard thyself, and thy soul; forget thou not the things which thine eyes have seen, and fall they not down from thy heart, all the days of thy life. Thou shalt teach them to thy sons and thy daughters, and to thy children's children.)

10 Tell thou to them (about) the day in which thou stoodest before thy Lord God in Horeb, when the Lord spake to me, and said, Gather thou the people to me, that it hear my words, and that it learn for to dread me in all time in which it liveth in (the) earth, and teach his sons. (Tell thou them about the day in which thou stoodest before the Lord thy God at Mount Sinai, when the Lord spoke to me, and said, Gather thou the people to me, so that they can hear my words, and that they learn to fear me/and that they learn to revere me, in all the time in which they live on the earth, and that they also teach their sons and their daughters this.)

11 And ye nighed to the root of the hill, that burnt till to heaven; and darknesses, and cloud, and mist were therein. (And ye came near, and stood at the foot of the mountain, that burned unto the heavens; and darkness, and cloud, and mist were on that mountain.)

12 And the Lord spake to you from the midst of [the] fire; ye heard the voice of his words, and utterly ye saw no form, or shape. (And the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire; ye heard him speaking to you, but truly ye saw no shape, or form.)

13 And he showed to you his covenant, which he commanded that ye should do, and [the] ten words, which he wrote in two tables of stone. (And he told you his covenant, which he commanded that ye should do, and the Ten Words, that is, the Ten Commandments, which he wrote on two tablets of stone.)