Exodus 34:30

30 And Aaron and the children of Israel seeing the face of Moses horned, were afraid to come near.

Exodus 34:30 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 34:30

And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses,
&c.] Who very probably met him at the bottom of the mount; these Israelites with Aaron were the princes, as Aben Ezra seems rightly to interpret it, and as appears from the following verse; for Moses could not well be seen by the whole body of the people at once, upon his descent from the mount:

behold, the skin of his face shone;
darted out rays of light and glory all around it, much perhaps in the same manner as the glory about our Lord, and others, is painted by the Romanists:

and they were afraid to come nigh him;
there was something so majestic and striking in it; and perhaps they could not tell whether it foreboded good or evil to them; and this may signify, that as by the light of the law sin is discovered, it fills with a sense of wrath and fear of damnation; and being the ministration of condemnation and death, it is terrifying and killing, though it has a glory in it.

Exodus 34:30 In-Context

28 And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights: he neither ate bread nor drank water, and he wrote upon the tables the ten words of the covenant.

29 And 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.

30 And Aaron and the children of Israel seeing the face of Moses horned, were afraid to come near.

31 And being called by him, they returned, both Aaron and the rulers of the congregation. And after that he spoke to them,

32 And all the children of Israel came to him: and he gave them in commandment all that he had heard of the Lord on Mount Sinai.