We were blessed to have had the opportunity to visit the Basilica di San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains) while on a recent pilgrimage to Rome, and while at the basilica, we saw Michelangelo’s magnificent statue of Moses which has been housed there since the 16th century (“The Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli.”). It’s a marvelous work of art – one can see the consternation on Moses’ face as he descended from Mt. Sinai and saw the Israelites and their golden calf.
Our wonderful guide that day, Roberta Meoni, told us that this statue was one of Michelangelo’s favorite sculptures. After detailing the history of the statue and Michelangelo’s frustrations with Pope Julius II who commissioned him to produce it, she pointed out two protuberances on the head of Moses which she said were horns which frequently appeared in iconography involving Moses in the past. She informed us that the appearance of these horns was due to an issue in an ancient translation of the Sacred Scriptures.
This piqued my curiosity, so I decided to investigate further.
The scriptural passage at issue is from the Book of Exodus which describes Moses descending from Mount Sinai with the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments and discovering the Israelites’ idolatry with the golden calf.
The translation at issue is St. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, completed by the saint by about 405 AD. One verse from the Book of Exodus will do as an example:
cumque descenderet Moses de monte Sinai tenebat duas tabulas testimonii et ignorabat quod cornuta esset facies sua ex consortio sermonis Dei Exodus 34:29
An English rendering of this verse from the Vulgate can be read in the Douay Rheims bible:
And when Moses came down from the mount Sinai, he held the two tables of the testimony, and he knew not that his face was horned from the conversation of the Lord. Exodus 34:29 DRA
The Latin word “cornuta” is an adjective meaning “horned” or “having horns”. We see the accusative form of this word in verses 30 and 35 of chapter 34.
Here is the same verse (Exodus 34:29) in a well-respected modern translation:
When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tables of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. Exodus 34:29 RSVCE
So, which is it? Was Moses’ face “horned” or did it “shine”?
The Hebrew Verb
The Hebrew verb used in these verses (Exodus 34:29,30,35), is קָרַן, is pronounced “kah-RAHN”. It is a denominal form, that is, a verb derived from a noun, specifically from the Hebrew noun קֶרֶן, pronounced “KEH-ren” and consisting of the same Hebrew consonants. The Hebrew alphabet has no vowels. The noun can take on many meanings, including horn, flask, cornet, power (figuratively), elephant’s tooth, mountain peak, a corner of an altar or a ray of light. Generally, it seems to denote something that protrudes, projects or is emitted. The denominal verb, then, can mean “to have horns”, “to shine”, or “to emit rays”. (Brown et al. 901-902)
Some scholars propose that St. Jerome used the literal meaning of the Hebrew verb, “to have horns”, under the influence of an earlier translator, the Greek Jewish scholar Aquila of Sinope (Toy et al.)(The NET Bible, 200) (“Aquila | Jewish, Greek & Translator”).
The Septuagint
It is clear that St. Jerome did not take into account the passage as it is rendered by the Septuagint (LXX), the Koine Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures favored by the inspired authors of the New Testament. In that translation, which was completed several centuries before Our Lord’s birth, the form of the Hebrew verb “קָרַן”, rendered as “cornuta” by the Vulgate, is rendered “δεδόξασται”, or “has been glorified” (“Greek Septuagint.”)(Brenton 118)(Thayer et al. 157).
A form of the same Hebrew verb is used in one other place in the Sacred Scriptures (Psalm 69:31), and there St. Jerome uses “cornua” (“horns”), consistent with the LXX’s use of “κέρατα”, or “horns”.
St. Paul settles the issue
Again, was Moses’ face “horned” or did it “shine”?
Well, Moses veiled his face when addressing the Israelites (34:33-35) upon coming down from the mountain, and in his second letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul authoritatively explains that this veil was to hide the splendor in Moses’ face:
“Now if the dispensation of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such splendor that the Israelites could not look at Moses’ face because of its brightness, fading as this was…Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not see the end of the fading splendor” 2 Corinthians 3:7,12-13
Who can argue with St. Paul?
Conclusion
St. Jerome chose to use the literal meaning of “קָרַן” instead of the figurative meaning when describing Moses’ face as he descended the mountain. Even though this has not proven to be the most apt translation, we can surely agree that Michelangelo’s Moses is glorious!
Sources
“Aquila | Jewish, Greek & Translator.” Britannica, 20 June 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aquila-ancient-biblical-scholar. Accessed 6 July 2025.
“The Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli.” Turismo Roma, https://www.turismoroma.it/en/places/basilica-san-pietro-vincoli. Accessed 6 July 2025.
Brenton, Lancelot Charles Lee. The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English. Translated by Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton, Hendrickson Publishers, 1986.
Brown, Francis, et al. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon: With an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic : Coded with the Numbering System from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Edited by Francis Brown, et al., Hendrickson Publishers, 1996.
“Greek Septuagint.” Kata Biblon, https://en.katabiblon.com/us/?text=LXX. Accessed 1 February 2025.
The NET Bible, New English Translation. Full Notes Edition. Thomas Nelson, 1996.
Thayer, Joseph Henry, et al. Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Coded with the Numbering System from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Edited by Joseph Henry Thayer, Hendrickson, 1996.
Toy, Crawford Howell, F. C. Burkitt, and Louis Ginzberg. “AQUILA (Ακύλας, ).” JewishEncyclopedia.com. https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1674-aquila-akvlac-foreignchars-v02p034001-jpg-foreignchars. Accessed on July 6, 2025.
