Volcanoes
The UPDV does not name volcanoes as such, yet the imagery the topic gathers — a smoking mountain, ground that quakes, rocks split apart, brimstone raining from heaven, hills melting like wax before fire — runs from Sinai through the Psalms, the prophets, the wisdom books, and into the Apocalypse. In every passage the figure is theophanic: where Yahweh draws near, the earth behaves the way mountains behave near magma.
Sinai, the Smoking Mountain
The foundational scene stands at Sinai. "And Mount Sinai, the whole of it, smoked, because Yahweh descended on it in fire; and its smoke ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly" (Ex 19:18). Deuteronomy recalls the same scene from inside the assembly: "the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness" (Deut 4:11), and again, "the mountain was burning with fire" while the people heard the voice "out of the midst of the darkness" (Deut 5:23). The Song of Deborah remembers it as a quake: "The mountains quaked at the presence of Yahweh, this Sinai at the presence of Yahweh, the God of Israel" (Judg 5:5). Ben Sira preserves the same memory of the mountain as the place from which Yahweh's word comes in judgement — "Who heard rebukes from Sinai, And from Horeb judgements of vengeance" (Sir 48:7).
The Numbers-itinerary references to "the wilderness of Sinai" (Num 10:12; Num 26:64) anchor the geography but do not return to the volcanic figure; they record only that Israel set forward from that wilderness and were numbered there.
Mountains That Melt at His Presence
The Psalms and prophets generalize the Sinai scene into a standing figure for Yahweh's coming. "The mountains melted like wax at the presence of Yahweh, At the presence of the Lord of the whole earth" (Ps 97:5). "Who looks on the earth, and it trembles; He touches the mountains, and they smoke" (Ps 104:32). The same image becomes a petition: "Bow your heavens, O Yahweh, and come down: Touch the mountains, and they will smoke" (Ps 144:5).
Isaiah recasts the figure as a longing for theophany: "Oh that you would tear the heavens, that you would come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence, as when fire kindles the brushwood, [and] the fire causes the waters to boil ... When you did awesome things which we didn't look for, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence" (Isa 64:1-3). Micah pushes the figure to its limit: "And the mountains will be melted under him, and the valleys will be split, as wax before the fire, as waters that are poured down a steep place" (Mic 1:4). Nahum gathers melting hills, quaking mountains, fire-poured wrath, and broken rocks into one stanza: "The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt ... His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken apart by him" (Nah 1:5-6).
Brimstone and Burning
Where the figure turns from theophany to judgement, the substance is brimstone. Sodom and Gomorrah supply the archetype: "Then [the Speech of] Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Yahweh out of heaven" (Gen 19:24). Luke records Jesus' use of the same scene: "in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all" (Luke 17:29). The Psalms generalize the figure into the wicked's portion: "On the wicked he will rain snares; Fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup" (Ps 11:6). Job describes the ruin of the godless household with the same word: "Brimstone will be scattered on his habitation" (Job 18:15).
Isaiah extends the figure to a whole land. Edom's streams "will be turned into pitch, and its dust into brimstone, and its land will become burning pitch. It will not be quenched night nor day; its smoke will go up forever" (Isa 34:9-10) — a country itself made into a perpetually erupting field.
Burnt Mountains
Jeremiah aims the figure at Babylon as a destroying power, and the prophecy borrows the volcanic vocabulary directly: "Look, I am against you, O destroying mountain, says Yahweh, which destroys all the earth; and I will stretch out my hand on you, and roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a burnt mountain" (Jer 51:25). What Sinai endured under theophany, Babylon will endure under judgement — reduced to a burnt-out cone, rolled from its rocks.
Earthquake as Signature
Earthquake is the figure's other half. At Horeb, the prophet receives the catalogue and the qualification: "a great and strong wind tore the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before Yahweh; but Yahweh was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but Yahweh was not in the earthquake" (1 Kings 19:11). The quake is real, the rocks break, but the Yahweh-identity is held back from the sign itself. At Michmash the quake becomes a battle terror: "there was a trembling in the camp, in the field, and among all the people; the garrison, and the spoilers, they also trembled; and the earth quaked: so there was an exceedingly great trembling" (1 Sam 14:15). The Apocalypse keeps the same vocabulary for the heavenly throne-room: "there followed lightnings, and voices, and thunders, and an earthquake, and great hail" (Rev 11:19).
Ben Sira moves the figure inward, into the wisdom register: "[As] timber firmly fixed into the wall Is not loosened by an earthquake, So a heart established on well-advised counsel Will not be fearful in time [of danger]" (Sir 22:16). The quake here is the figure for whatever shakes a life; the well-counselled heart is the timber that holds.
Across these passages the topic's shape is consistent. Smoking summits, melting hills, raining brimstone, broken rocks, and the trembling earth are not described as natural phenomena to be explained, but as the way creation answers when its God draws near or strikes.