The translator must first decide how to translate the verb rendered come to in verses 18 and 22. The verb consists of the common verb for come and a prefix meaning “toward.” In some contexts, for example, Matthew 5.1, it means “come to,” not merely “come near to” or “approach.” The question here is whether Christians are thought of as already fully part of the city of the living God (verse 22), with its joyful gathering of God’s first-born sons (verse 23), or whether they have only “approached” it. King James Version and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch agree with Good News Translation‘s you have come to; Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente and some other common language translations have “you have approached”; New English Bible “you stand before.” The meaning of such picture language is difficult to define precisely, but the wider context, especially verse 25, suggests that the readers are not yet completely part of the heavenly city and can still turn away. Indeed, turn away from is a natural opposite to “draw near to” or “approach.” The Greek verb is commonly used of approaching God in “worship” (Heb 4.16; 7.25; 10.1, 22; 11.6). In verses 18-21 the Israelites come near to Mount Sinai but are forbidden to set foot on it.
As the people of Israel came is added, as in other common language translations and Translator’s New Testament, because the modern non-Jewish reader might not realize that the writer is referring to such passages as Exodus 10.21-22; 19.12-22; 20.18-21; Deuteronomy 4.11-12; 5.22-27.
The name Sinai is certainly not part of the Greek text; the word translated Mount is not found in some manuscripts either, nor is it in the UBS Greek text. However, it correctly represents the meaning, and it should be made explicit in translation, to make clearer the contrast with Mount Zion in verse 22, where both words are expressed in the Greek. Other possibilities are (a) something other than only the mountain which can be “sensed,” “touched,” or “felt”; not Revised Standard Version‘s “may be touched,” since “may” appears to contradict verse 20, which recalls the command not to approach; or (b) with New English Bible to take “palpable,” that is, “which can be touched,” with “fire.” Choice (a) is attractive; it involves taking “which can be touched” as a general term, “which can be sensed,” referring to all the details mentioned in verses 18-19, details which could be perceived by various senses. In any case, Good News Translation‘s you before can feel has the more general meaning “one can feel”; it does not refer only to the readers, like the You with which the sentence begins. A translation taking these points into account would be “You have not come, as the people of Israel came, to things that can be perceived with the senses: to a blazing fire….”
Verse 18 and what follows through verse 21 pose serious problems for the translator in contrasting the experience of the Christian believers with the experience which the people of Israel had at Mount Sinai. The problem is particularly acute with the first part of verse 18, which combines a negative You have not come with a positive to what you can feel. A more satisfactory way of showing the contrast may be to begin verse 18 as “You are not like the people of Israel who came to what they could feel—to Mount Sinai with its blazing fire….” The contrast may then be introduced at verse 22 by translating “You are not like those people of Israel, for you have come to Mount Zion….”
It may be better to translate to Mount Sinai with its blazing fire … as “to Mount Sinai, where there was the blazing fire, the darkness, and the gloom….”
Deuteronomy 4.11 refers to “darkness and cloud,” and Exodus 19.16 to “thunder and lightning.” The Greek word for storm usually means an intense windstorm. It may be difficult to distinguish between the darkness and the gloom. The two terms in Greek may, in fact, be designed to reinforce the intensity of the darkness, and so one may be able to employ “the intense darkness.” For storm, one may use “windstorm.”
Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Letter of the Hebrews. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1983. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .