1973
Why do portraits of Moses show him with horn-like rays coming from his head?
December 1973


“Why do portraits of Moses show him with horn-like rays coming from his head?” Ensign, Dec. 1973, 34

Why do portraits of Moses by the “old masters,” such as the one on the cover of the October Ensign, and the statue by Michaelangelo on page 8 of the same issue, show him with horn-like rays coming from his head?

When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, the book of Exodus tells us that the “skin of his face shone.”

Early Latin (Vulgate) editions of the Old Testament mistranslated this phrase from the Hebrew. The translators had mistaken the word light for the word horn. Thus many early painters and sculptors showed Moses with horns, or later, rays of light which resembled horns.

The portrait of Moses is typical of those painted by the Spaniard Ribera (1588–1652) who had gone to Naples to paint. Ribera often used the faces of the Neapolitan peasants to portray the great prophets of the past. He wanted them to have the strength and dignity of the “common man.”

The statue of Moses, executed by Michaelangelo between 1513 and 1515, sits at the foot of the tomb of Pope Julius. Michaelangelo tried to show Moses as a man of action and power, and also as a strong and sensitive man.