The Face of Moses — Horned or Radiant?

While studying the transfiguration and using the cross-reference pop-over on the site, which originally was pointing to the Original Douay-Rheims translation, I came across this passage:

And Aaron & the children of Israel seeing the face of Moyses horned, they were afraid to come near.

Exodus 34:30 (ODR)

Which made me stop. Wait… Moses’ face was what!?

Naturally, I went down the rabbit hole into trying to figure out why this version mentioned Moses’ face horned while other versions mention radiant or shining.

New Advent was particularly helpful here because it shows the chapter in both Greek, English and Latin. I’ve used Google Translate to translate the Greek and Latin since I know nothing about these languages, and noted that the Latin version mentions:

Videntes autem Aaron et filii Israël cornutam Moysi faciem, timuerunt prope accedere

Exodus 30:30 (CV)

Which, translated from Latin to English, says that Moses’s face was horned. So I started looking into why this choice of word appeared. Naturally, I would have to go and look at the passage in Hebrew. I am no expert, and I am only using the tools available online to try and make up my own conclusion about this passage.

Hebrew

Thanks to the Blue Letter Bible, we can look at the passage in Hebrew and examine the individual words. I know nothing about Biblical Hebrew, so rather than attempting to translate the passage myself, I am relying on the lexical information provided by tools such as Blue Letter Bible and STEP Bible.

וַיַּרְא אַהֲרֹן וְכָל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת־מֹשֶׁה וְהִנֵּה קָרַן עוֹר פָּנָיו וַיִּירְאוּ מִגֶּשֶׁת אֵלָיו׃

Exodus 34:30

The verb at the centre of the question is qāran (קָרַן), which is related to qeren (קֶרֶן), the Hebrew word normally translated as “horn.” According to STEP Bible, the form used in Exodus 34 is the Qal form of the verb and has the sense of sending out rays or radiating.

The verb qāran itself is quite rare in the Old Testament. It appears in Exodus 34:29, Exodus 34:30, Exodus 34:35 and Psalms 69:31. The occurrence in the Psalm is interesting because there, the same root is used in a different verbal form and in a context that clearly refers to an animal with horns.

This will please the LORD more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs.

Psalm 69:31 (NRSV)

This does not by itself explain why Saint Jerome chose the Latin cornuta (“horned”) when translating Exodus, but it does show that the Hebrew root is genuinely connected with the idea of horns.

The related noun qeren (קֶרֶן) occurs much more frequently in Scripture. Although its ordinary meaning is “horn,” it can also be used figuratively in contexts involving strength, might or exaltation. One particularly interesting passage for the question of Moses’ face is Habakkuk 3:4, where qarnayim (קַרְנַיִם), the dual form of qeren (“horn”), is used in a description of brilliant light and is rendered by some English translations as “rays”

The brightness was like the sun; rays came forth from his hand, where his power lay hidden.

Habakkuk 3:4 (NRSV)

Interestingly, translations following the Vulgate tradition can preserve the horn imagery much more literally. The CPDV, for example, reads:

His brightness shall be like the light; horns are in his hands. There, his strength has been hidden.

Habakkuk 3:4 (CPDV)

This seems particularly relevant because the same imagery can be rendered as either “horns” or “rays” depending on how the Hebrew metaphor is understood. It provides an interesting parallel to the problem in Exodus: language derived from “horn” can appear in a context describing brilliant light and be understood as rays projecting from its source.

I don’t think I can take the Hebrew much further without knowing considerably more Biblical Hebrew. What seems reasonably clear is that the wording of Exodus is more complicated than simply saying that Jerome confused the Hebrew word for “shining” with the Hebrew word for “horn.” The terms share the same Hebrew root, and elsewhere in Scripture horn-language can even appear in the context of radiating light.

That leaves me with the more interesting historical question: why did Saint Jerome choose cornuta when translating this passage into Latin?

Septuagint

The same passage of Exodus in the Septuagint is as follows:

καὶ εἶδεν Ααρων καὶ πάντες οἱ πρεσβύτεροι Ισραηλ τὸν Μωυσῆν καὶ ἦν δεδοξασμένη ἡ ὄψις τοῦ χρώματος τοῦ προσώπου αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐφοβήθησαν ἐγγίσαι αὐτοῦ

Exodus 34:30

The Septuagint does not translate the language describing Moses’ face using the ordinary Greek word for “horn.” Instead, it uses a form of doxazō (δοξάζω), which means “to glorify.” This is particularly interesting when compared with Habakkuk 3:4, where the Septuagint does use kerata (κέρατα), “horns,” when translating the related Hebrew qeren.

καὶ φέγγος αὐτοῦ ὡς φῶς ἔσται κέρατα ἐν χερσὶν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἔθετο ἀγάπησιν κραταιὰν ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ

Habakkuk 3:4

Paul and the Glory of Moses’s Face

The Septuagint’s choice to describe Moses’ face using the language of glory becomes particularly interesting when we look at how Saint Paul refers to the same event in 2 Corinthians 3:7. Paul explicitly describes what happened to Moses’ face in terms of glory:

But if the ministration of death, engraved with letters upon stones, was in glory, (so much so that the sons of Israel were not able to gaze intently upon the face of Moses, because of the glory of his countenance) even though this ministration was ineffective,

2 Corinthians 3:7 (CPDV)

Paul returns to the same language throughout the passage. He speaks of the Israelites being unable to gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, Moses covering his face with a veil, and finally contrasting this with Christians who behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces (2 Corinthians 3:18).

This does not necessarily tell us exactly what the Hebrew qaran means, but it does give us an early Christian interpretation of the event: what was visible on Moses’ face was associated with the glory of God.

Saint Jerome’s Translation

This leaves me with the question that started this whole rabbit hole. If the Septuagint described Moses’ appearance using the language of glory, and Saint Paul also understood the event in terms of glory, why did Saint Jerome translate the Hebrew using the Latin cornuta, “horned”?

While trying to investigate St. Jerome and this specific term, I came across the Commentary on Ezekiel Book XII, but it’s in Latin so I had to rely on online translations to get the meaning of the text.

In the text, St. Jerome says, “Denique post quadraginta dies, vultum Moysi vulgus ignobile, caligantibus oculis, non videbat, quia glorificata erat, sive ut in Hebraico continetur, cornuta facies Moysi”. I have translated the relevant passage below with the assistance of online translation tools:

Finally, after forty days, the common people could not see Moses’ face, their eyes being dazzled, because it had been glorified—or, as the Hebrew has it, the face of Moses was horned.

Jerome, Commentaria in Ezechielem, Liber XII

At the very least, this shows that Jerome’s use of cornuta(“horned)” cannot be explained simply by saying that he was unaware of Moses’ face being described as “glorified.” Jerome knew this way of describing Moses’ face and nevertheless explicitly associated cornuta with what he found in the Hebrew text.

What this passage does not explain is exactly how St. Jerome understood cornuta. Did he imagine Moses with literal horns, or did he understand the horn imagery as a way of describing the glory or rays emanating from Moses’ face? So far, I have not found a passage where Jerome explicitly explains what he believed Moses’ face actually looked like.