But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious. — More accurately, engraved in a writing (i.e., in a written formula) upon stones. The word for “writing” is the same as the “letter” of the preceding verse, and the whole might, perhaps, be best translated, if the ministration of death in the letter, engraved upon stones, was glorious. The English version, by using the two participles, creates a false antithesis between “written” and “engraved,” and misses the sequence of thought indicated by the continued use of the word for “letter” or “writing.” For “was glorious,” more accurately, came into being with glory. The thoughts of the Apostle have travelled to the record of the circumstances connected with the giving of the Law as the foundation of the first covenant, and of them he proceeds to speak fully. We can almost picture him to ourselves as taking up his LXX. version of the Law, and reproducing its very words and thoughts.
So that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold... — The narrative in Exodus 34:29-35 records that when Moses came down from the mount with the second tables of stone, “the skin of his face shone,” and the “people were afraid to draw nigh unto him.” The English version — that “till Moses had done speaking with them he put a vail on his face,” and that “when he went in before the Lord he took it off until he came out” — suggests the thought that he appeared to the people, after the first manifestation of the unconscious glory, as a veiled prophet. It is doubtful, however, whether this is the natural meaning of the Hebrew, and Exodus 34:35 repeats the statement that the Israelites saw the glory. The LXX., Vulgate, and most modern versions give, “When he ceased speaking he put a veil on his face.” They saw the brightness, they shrank from it in awe, they were not allowed to watch it to the end and gaze on its disappearance. This was the sequence of facts that St. Paul had in his thoughts, and which he certainly found in the LXX.; and it is of this, accordingly, that he speaks. The children of Israel could not bear to look on the glory, even though it was perishing and evanescent. The English rendering, “which glory was to be done away,” reads into the participle a gerundial force that does not properly belong to it; and it may be noted that it is the first of the great English versions that does so, the others giving, “which is made void,” or “which is done away.” It would be better expressed, perhaps, by, which was in the act of passing away. The Greek word is the same as that on which our translators have rung so many changes in 1 Corinthians 13:8-11. It was a favourite word with St. Paul at this period of his life, occurring twenty-two times in 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, and Romans, and three times only in his other Epistles.
It may be noted that the Vulgate rendering of Exodus 34:29, “ignorabat quod cornuta esset facies ejus” (“he knew not that his face was horned”), has given rise to the representations of Moses with horns, or rays of light taking the place of horns, as in Michael Angelo’s statue in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli at Rome, and pictorial representations generally.