And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.
Moses came down ... with the two tables of testimony in Moses' hand - probably supporting them with the extremities of his girdle, in the Eastern fashion.
Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone, х qaaran (H7160)] - was 'horned ' - i:e., shone. The word signifies to push with the horn, to emit rays. The Septuagint renders it as dedoxastai, was glorified. The Vulgate has adopted the former sense, and translated, 'cornuta erat.' Hence, Moses was delineated by the mediaeval painters with horns. It was an intimation of the exalted presence into which he had been admitted, and of the glory he had witnessed (2 Corinthians 3:18); and in that view it was a badge of his high office as the ambassador of God.
No testimonial needed to be produced. He bore his credentials on his very face, instead of the thunder and lightnings on the first delivery of the law (Exodus 19:16; Exodus 20:18); and although this extraordinary effulgence was a merely temporary distinction, destined to vanish away, it cannot be doubted that this reflected glory was given him as an honour before all the people. For it was not a lamp, lit at some heavenly altar, he carried in his hand; but the light was in his face, the result of that which, during forty days of heavenly converse, his soul had been receiving from God. We may say, that in the shining of Moses' face, as he came down from the mount of God, we have already a weaker transfiguration, a feeble fore-announcement of that brightness which, not from without, but breaking forth from within, should clothe with a light which no words could adequately utter, not the face only, but the whole person of the Son of God (Trench's 'Hulsean Lectures,', p.
67).
Whitby has instituted an elaborate comparison between Moses on this occasion and the apostles on the day of Pentecost, at the inauguration of the Gospel, with a view to show the superior glory of the Gospel (Acts 2:3). But the comparison does not hold good in this respect, that the visible glory did not remain on the apostles. The rationalistic explanation of this reflected radiance on the countenance is so ridiculous and contemptible that it would not deserve any notice, except as a specimen of the lengths to which these writers go in their sneers at everything supernatural.
'The shining of Moses' face could only have been deemed miracuious so long as the nature of electricity was not known. He came down in the evening from the mountain; and those who saw him remarked only the shining of his countenance (because the rest of his body was covered with his clothes), the origin of which he and his contemporaries could not explain on physical grounds. Was it not natural, therefore, that Moses should impute it to what he was already convinced was a fact?-to his relationship with Deity' (Eichhorn, quoted by Hengstenberg, 'Pentateuch,' 1:, pp. 31, 32).