Commentaria in Exodum
Hence also these horns were not of bone, but of light; because the law, which he was to give from God as lawgiver, is light, and that heavenly and divine, Prov. 6:23; as the place Habac. 3:4 teaches. The Arabs also call the rays of the rising sun the horns of the gazelle.
Secondly, the horns of Moses signified that his law would be threatening and terrible, as though Moses horned were about to gore with his horns those who violated the law, inflicting on them the penalty of death. For the old law was one of rigour and terror: as the new, on the contrary, is of grace and love.
FROM THE CONVERSATION OF THE LORD.—Hence it is plain that these horns of light, that is these rays, were breathed upon Moses from his converse with God, especially when the glory of God passed before the hole of the rock, and cried out: “O the Lord, the Lord God,” in this chapter, verse 6. For Moses had asked to see the face of the Lord, speaking with him through the cloud; but God answers: “My back parts (that is, my back, in the body assumed through the angel) thou shalt see; but my face (as being too radiant) thou canst not see.” God, therefore, or rather the angel of God acting in his place, put Moses in the cave, and covered it with a cloud, and so passed before Moses in the glorious and most lucid body assumed by himself; and when he had passed, he removed the cloud, that Moses might behold the back of the Lord, or rather of the angel (in which the light was more tempered than in the face); the back of the Lord, then, wonderfully radiant, so struck Moses as he gazed that it affixed to him as it were horns of light.
For that the face of Moses radiated chiefly from this is plain from the fact that the first time, when after conversing the same number of days with the Lord he received the first tables, Exod. 32:15, we read nothing of such rays; likewise not in this second conversation immediately before that vision of God, when Moses came down from the mount to bring the tables to God, verses 3 and 4, which happened on the thirty-ninth day of the second stay on Sinai, since nothing of the sort is narrated of Moses. It is likely, therefore, that in that most splendid and eminent vision just mentioned God contracted these rays for Moses, and they were breathed upon him, namely on the last, the fortieth day, on which he was with God on Sinai, and on which he received from him the second tables of the law, and this first, that God might declare his love toward Moses, and repay love with love. Secondly, that he might show the law to be promulgated to the Israelites divine, and flowing from God, by this most certain mark, and strike terror, that they should not dare thereafter to violate it; this cause the Apostle assigns, 2 Cor. chap. 3, verse 7. Thirdly, to win authority for Moses with the people. Fourthly, to show the force and fruit of prayer.
How long this splendour of his countenance lasted Scripture does not express. Abulensis, for the reasons already given, thinks that it lasted to the death of Moses, and therefore that Moses, after the first colloquy with the people, veiled his face thenceforth till death when he addressed the people. So also thinks Ambrose on Psalm 118, who also pursues the allegorical cause: Moses, he says, that is the old law, always had a veil; Jesus, or Josue, his successor, had none: for Christ took away every veil of the law, as the Apostle says, 2 Cor. chap. 3, verse 14. This opinion the most illustrious Bellarmine also intimates, book 2 On the Relics of the Saints, chap. 4.
Morally note: God is immense and uncreated light, the fountain of all light and brightness; hence light is a most noble and heavenly quality, by which God, when he appeared, represented his majesty. “Light,” says St. Dionysius, On the Divine Names, “is from the Good itself, and the image of goodness. Therefore the Good itself is praised under the name of light, as an exemplar expressed in a certain image.” Hence those who converse with God, and in prayer often speak with him, like Moses are breathed upon by the rays of God, and become lucid in the soul, and sometimes in the face and body. So Christ in prayer was transfigured, and his face shone as the sun, so that with his rays he lit up not only Elias and Moses, but also Peter, James and John. For Peter, exulting in this splendour and joy, and as if drunk, cried out: “Lord, it is good for us to be here: let us make here three tabernacles, one for thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias.” So the face of St. Antony, passing the night in prayer, shone continually, so that among so many thousands of monks Antony was recognised by the light and joy of his countenance alone: for he seemed like a sun among the stars. So St. Francis, lifted into the air in fervent prayer, shone and glowed, and seemed to dart flames and fires from himself.
was often seen with a countenance august and radiant beyond the human. So the august face of the Blessed Virgin shone from her continual converse with God and the Word incarnate, so that she seemed a kind of goddess, as St. Dionysius testifies. Now these rays of light had the appearance of horns, to signify that by prayer the Saints are not only enlightened with divine light, but also made horned, that is constant, strong, robust, unconquerable to bear all hard things, and likewise to undertake any arduous thing. So by prayer St. Anna, mother of Samuel, was strengthened, of whom it is said, 1 Kings 1:18: “And her countenance was no more changed into divers things,” as if to say: With a countenance ever constant to herself she thenceforth received alike the praises of Helcana and the scoffs of Phenenna; alike hard things and sweet; alike adverse and prosperous.
30. AND AARON AND THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL SEEING THE FACE OF MOSES HORNED, WERE AFRAID TO COME NEAR,—because, namely, they could not fix the gaze of their eyes on his countenance so radiant, or on this brightness of his face, and because they revered Moses as now made divine by these rays: but these rays were hidden from Moses himself, because he was absorbed in the vision and colloquy of God, nor could he behold his face save in a mirror, which, had he looked, he would certainly have seen these rays of his countenance.
(Moses to Aaron and the princes of the people), ALL THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL CAME TO HIM,—now reassured from fear, when they saw Aaron and the princes conversing with Moses.
33. AND THE WORDS BEING ENDED, HE PUT A VEIL UPON HIS FACE.—From this place it is gathered that Moses promulgated the precepts of God to the people at the first colloquy with face open and radiant, on account of the majesty, reverence and testimony of the law; but after that first promulgation, thenceforth when he spoke with the people he veiled his face, that opportunity of freer converse might be given; but when he went to the tabernacle, of which chap. 33, verse 8, to speak with the Lord, he took the veil away.
The Apostle gives the allegorical cause of this veiling, 2 Cor. chap. 3, verses 14, 15, 16. For to the Jews the Old Testament is covered with a veil, so that they see not its inner light, of the New Testament; this veil Christ has taken away from us in the new law, and will take away at the end of the age from the Jews, who are to be converted to the faith of Christ.
Tropologically St. Gregory, part 3 of the Pastoral, chap. 5: The preacher, he says, must needs adapt himself to the hearer; for all lofty things ought to be hidden from many hearers, and scarcely opened to a few.
35. The latter part of this verse can be rendered from the Hebrew thus: Then, when he had ceased to speak, he put the veil again over his face, until he entered the tabernacle to speak with him, namely Jehovah.