Subtlety was not one of Michelangelo’s strong suits. And so, Moses, who in life shared in so much of the glory of God that his face shone with majesty, got his most enduring likeness carved with a pair of sad, floppy horns, partly because St. Jerome was a tad careless with his Bible translation and partly because Michelangelo had it in for the guy whose tomb he was carving.
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I nterestingly, though, by the time Michelangelo was working on Julius II’s tomb, it was pretty widely known that the idea of a horned Moses stemmed from an overly literal translation. Which, of course, raises the question of why Michelangelo chose to portray his Moses with horns anyway.
If you ever visit St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, you’ll likely see the tomb of Pope Julius II, an ornate structure that includes one of Michelangelo’s most famous sculptures: his depiction of Moses.
One English translation retains the “horns” wording in Exodus 34. The Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible translation of Exodus 34:29 says, “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” (emphasis added).
In the Bible, horns often symbolize power, expressing domination of the weak (Ezekiel 34:21), the power of destruction (Zechariah 1:18–21), and deliverance from oppression (1 Kings 22:11; 2 Chronicles 18:10). The seven horns of the Lamb of God represent His infinite power (Revelation 5:6). Moses did not have horns on his head.
The horns came about because of an ambiguity of the Latin version of Exodus 34, 30. After being addressed by God on top of Mount Sinai and given the Tablets of the Law containing the Ten Commandments, Moses descended to his people in the desert. His face was seen to shine with a divine light.
MichelangeloMosè di Michelangelo / ArtistMichelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, known simply as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet of the High Renaissance. Wikipedia
Horns represent salvation and immortality as well, as the horn is extremely durable. Notions of protection and asylum are carried with the horn, and it also means the beginning to Egyptians and Jung.
He has enormous muscular arms and an angry, intense look in his eyes. Under his arms he carries the tablets of the law—the stones inscribed with the Ten Commandments that he has just received from God on Mt. Sinai. You might marvel at Moses' horns.
Since Jerome was living in the Holy Land at the time and consulted with Jews when working on his translation, he must have been informed by them that Moses indeed had horns. This may be a bit hard to believe, but we in fact know that some Jews did believe that Moses was literally horned.
St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican CityPope Julius II / Place of burialJulius II, however, is buried next to his uncle Sixtus IV in St. Peter's Basilica, so the final structure does not actually function as a tomb.
120 yearsAccording to the biblical narrative, Moses lived 120 years and was 80 when he confronted Pharaoh, but there is no indication how old he was when he went to see the Hebrews.
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, (born c. 1525, Palestrina, near Rome [Italy]—died February 2, 1594, Rome), Italian Renaissance composer of more than 105 masses and 250 motets, a master of contrapuntal composition.
One of those is Michelangelo’s Moses. Commissioned in 1505 by Pope Julius II, the colossal sculpture strangely portrays the biblical lawgiver with two horns on his head. Even if this might seem an oddity at first sight, the choice is far from being a novelty attributable to the Renaissance genius. In fact, the motif of the Horned Moses can be found with relative ease in medieval illuminated manuscripts. It is the result —as is usually the case— of an early mistranslation, widely spread, from the Hebrew to the Latin. Once again, Jerome’s Vulgate is to blame.
Be that as it may, most scholars agree: Jerome simply made a mistake. Actually, this is far from being the only error found in his translation. The Septuagint —the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible— refers to the face of Moses as being “glorified” instead —a translation that seems to be way closer to the original Hebrew “radiant. ” Paul seems to echo this translation when, in his second letter to the Corinthians (Cf. 2 Cor 3, 7) he writes that “the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory ” — and not because of his horns.
So, in Exodus chapter 34, after spending several days on Mt. Sinai, taking down God’s dictation of the Ten Commandments, Moses’ face is described as being “horned.”. The writers of the third-century–B.C. Septuagint, the Ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, got the gist and rendered the word as glorified —that is, ...
Peter’s Basilica in Rome, you’ll likely see the tomb of Pope Julius II, an ornate structure that includes one of Michelangelo’s most famous sculptures: his depiction of Moses. Widely considered one of the world’s most striking works of art, the piece depicts the biblical lawgiver seated, clutching the Ten Commandments, ...
Widely considered one of the world’s most striking works of art, the piece depicts the biblical lawgiver seated, clutching the Ten Commandments, and looking into the distance with an intense glare, apparently at Israel’s idolatry of the golden calf. Supposedly, upon completing the marble figure, the sculptor struck its knee with a hammer ...
Unfortunately for Moses, though, Jerome translated the Old Testament directly from Hebrew into Latin, bypassing the Septuagint entirely—and because the Hebrew said “horns,” “horns” was what went into the Vulgate. Some historians have claimed this was an error on Jerome’s part, but Jerome’s other writings—specifically, ...
And so, for the next dozen centuries, Moses had horns.
It’s true. Despite all its majesty, the statue possesses a rather sad, floppy-looking pair of horns—the sort you might expect to see on a baby goat, or something. And it’s actually not terribly unique in that regard—the image of a horned Moses is fairly common in Western medieval iconography, to the point that horns are nearly as closely associated ...
It’s possible that Michelangelo and other ancient artists used horns symbolically, in the same way Jerome did in the Latin Vulgate, to visually illustrate rays of light in the form of horn-like protrusions. Although some anti-Semitic propaganda has since depicted Jews as having horns, Michelangelo’s sculpture of Moses did not represent anything negative or demonic.
The reason that Moses has “horns” in the Douay-Rheims Translation is that the DRT was translated directly ...
In the Bible, horns often symbolize power, expressing domination of the weak ( Ezekiel 34:21 ), the power of destruction ( Zechariah 1:18–21 ), and deliverance from oppression ...
Jerome, in saying that Moses was unaware that “his face had become horned,” was most likely expressing the fact that the skin of Moses’ face radiated with “strong horns of light.”. But his wording led to overly literal interpretations by artists who assumed that Moses had actual horns protruding from his face when he descended Mount Sinai.
Michelangelo’s famous statue of Moses on display in Vincoli, Rome, in the Basilica of St. Peter in Chains, depicts Moses with two horns on his head. This horned portrayal of Moses by Michelangelo and by other artists in other works of art and literature stems from a passage in the book of Exodus.
Moses did not have horns on his head. He had “a face of strength,” emanating rays of light after he talked with God. The Bible is clear about this, but a faulty translation of one verse—some would say an overly literal translation—amplified by classical artwork, has led to some confusion and puzzlement. Return to: