Exodus 34:35

Summary

The verse describes the Israelites seeing that the skin of Moses' face shone after he spoke with the LORD, and Moses' habitual practice of putting the veil back over his face until he would go in again to speak with him.

Key words

• qaran ("it shone", H7160) — qal perfect, 3rd person masculine. This root is written identically to the noun qeren ("horn"), a homograph that has shaped some translation choices.
• or ("skin of", H5785) — masculine singular construct, specifying that it is the skin of Moses' face, not merely his "face" as a whole, that shone.
• heshiv ("he returned/put back", H7725) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect. The hiphil stem indicates Moses caused the veil to return to its place, i.e., he put it back on, implying it had been removed.
• ha-masveh ("the veil", H4533) — definite noun, the physical object covering Moses' face.
• itto ("with him", H0854 + suffix) — preposition with 3rd person masculine singular suffix; the referent (Moses' interlocutor) is grammatically ambiguous in the Hebrew clause, since no explicit name is given in this verse.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence chain uses two sequential perfects joined by the narrative ve- ("and"): first ra'u ("they saw", H7200), then heshiv ("he returned/put back", H7725), forming the two main narrated actions — Israel's seeing and Moses' re-covering. Between them, a causal/explanatory clause introduced by ki ("that/because", H3588) explains why they saw what they saw: "that qaran the or of the penei Moshe" — "that the skin of the face of Moses shone." The repetition of penei Mosheh ("face of Moses", H6440+H4872) twice in close proximity (verses 34–35 context) reinforces the visual focus on Moses' face specifically.

The final clause, ad bo'o le-dabber itto ("until his coming to speak with him"), uses two infinitives (bo'o, "his coming", H0935; dabber, "to speak", H1696) to describe a recurring, habitual action rather than a single event — Moses would remove the veil each time before going in to speak, then put it back (heshiv) afterward. The pronoun suffix in itto ("with him") does not name the addressee explicitly within this verse's own text.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew qaran ("it shone", H7160) is rendered by the Vulgate as cornutam ("horned"), reflecting the homograph with qeren ("horn"). The LXX instead reads δεδόξασται ("has been glorified"), omitting any reference to skin or shining/horn imagery. The LXX also omits the phrase corresponding to or peney Mosheh ("skin of the face of Moses") and gives a shorter object, τὸ πρόσωπον ("the face"). Several modern translations (BSB, SBLIBRE) supply "the LORD" or "Dios" as the object of dabber... itto ("to speak with him"), a referent not named explicitly in this Hebrew clause.