The people heard the sound of Yahweh’s voice, as he spoke to them out of the midst of the fire that blazed on top of Mount Sinai. The verse stresses the fact that there was no visible manifestation of Yahweh; only the sound of his voice was heard.

Good News Translation essentially combines this clause and the final one with “there was only a voice”; but this is not emphatic enough. The text avoids saying “You did not see Yahweh”; it says “you saw no form.” (It is interesting to notice that in Num 12.8 Yahweh says that Moses does see “the form” of Yahweh when Yahweh talks to him.) The Hebrew noun (also verse 15) means here the “visible form” of a living being; in other contexts it means an artifact, the representation in wood or metal of a god (see 4.16, 23, 25; 5.8).

If in a given language there is no word to express the notion of “visible form,” a translation may say “You saw nothing”; “You didn’t see a thing [or, anyone].”

There was only a voice: “you only heard a voice”; “you only heard someone speaking.”

An alternative translation model for this verse is:

• Tell them how the LORD spoke to you from the fire. You heard him speaking, but you didn’t see anyone. All you heard was someone speaking.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .