Mediator, Law-Giver, and Prophet

Exodus 34:10–35

Works of art by Ferdinand Bol, Master of Amiens (Maître du Amiens) and Unknown artist

Horns, Hare, and Synagogue

This striking illustration of Moses receiving the Law is set above a depiction of the golden calf episode, collapsing the key narrative moments of Exodus 32–34. It accompanies short, pithy teachings on the Ten Commandments in some editions of La Somme le Roi, a book on Virtues and Vices, commissioned by King Philip III of France towards the end of the thirteenth century.

The author and compiler, Dominican Brother Laurent d’Orléans, was the royal confessor and tutor to the king’s children. Written in the vernacular, it was intended to be a resource to help parish priests to instruct the laity in Christian doctrine. Its ninety extant manuscripts and translation into six different languages are a testament to the manual’s popularity and circulation across Europe.

When Moses receives the commandments for a second time, his face shines with divine glory and he has to wear a veil to avoid dazzling the people. Moses’s horns are a quirk of ancient translation. A linguistic, if not conceptual, connection between the Hebrew verb qāran (‘shone’) and the noun qeren (‘horn’) led to Jerome describing Moses’s face as cornuta ‘horned’ in the Latin Vulgate. This interpretation made its way into artistic depictions of Moses in the eleventh century, alongside depictions of Moses’s face shining with rays of light.

On the right, the female symbol of Synagoga (synagogue), often—and unfortunately—contrasted with Ecclesia (church), stands with her crooked staff in one hand and the Law in the other. She is seen as forlorn and blind to the ‘truth’, communicating the antisemitic supersessionist belief that the rightful inheritors of the covenant are now those in the embrace of the Church.

At the centre of this illustration is Mount Sinai with a fiery outline that recalls the burning bush from Moses’s first encounter with God in Exodus 3. The appearance of the hare, often used to symbolize the way that individual Christians or the collective Church hide themselves in Christ the rock, might also be explained by Jerome’s description of Moses as ‘the Lord’s hare’ in his commentary on Exodus 33:22–23.

The Weight of the Law

Commentary by Alison Gray

Cite Share

A solemn Moses, adorned in shimmering golden robes, cradles the second set of tablets as he descends from Mount Sinai. Almost hesitant, he looks down over the people of Israel, fiercely protective of the divine laws and the precious covenant they symbolize.

At the foot of the mountain in the bottom half of the painting, the artist depicts the Israelites’ response to the return of their leader and mediator. It has been forty days since their punishment for the idolatry of the golden calf. In this they were led by Aaron, who is now pictured in a penitential pose in pale blue. Some of the characters shield their eyes from the dazzling gleam that surrounds a veil-less Moses—reflecting his glory-filled encounter with God. Others lift their hands in prayer and humble adoration to receive the merciful gift of the Law.

The imposing scene was originally commissioned for the Town Hall of Amsterdam, now the Royal Palace. Moses’s theological authority, here confirming the authority of the town’s magistrates, is accentuated by the cherubs who accompany him in the heavens. Each cherub offers a reflection on the Law for the seventeenth-century viewer.

The most prominent, in a central position with bright wings, peers down at the people whilst proffering large white lilies—a symbol of innocence and purity. Next to Moses, another looks instead towards the tablets, holding an ouroboros (a serpent eating its own tail), suggestive of the eternal circle of life and death. The cherub on the far left holds its own dark rain cloud, a typical biblical symbol of divine presence, both revealed and concealed like the cherub. Finally, the topmost cherub clasps a fasces—a bundle of rods with an axe blade protruding from one end—another reference to the magistrates’ divinely ordained power.

Faithfulness and Grace

Commentary by Alison Gray

Cite Share

This is a rare midrashic illustration from the Regensburg Pentateuch, a medieval Ashkenazi manuscript from around 1300. It is one of only five full-page illustrations in the liturgical manuscript that was gifted to Gad ben Peter Ha-Levi, the leader of the Jewish community in Regensburg, Bavaria.

A divine hand from the heavenly clouds passes the Ten Commandments to Moses, who initiates a chain of faithful transmission of the laws down the mountainside. The Hebrew manuscript at the top contains the beginning of the first five commandments (Exodus 20:3–12) along with the preface from verse 2 ‘I am the LORD’. Below that is the second half of the commandments all of which begin with the permanent prohibition in Hebrew lō’: ‘Do not ever…’ (vv.13–14). Two other figures form this chain, presumably Joshua (24:13) and Aaron (19:24; 24:1). The elders, representing the whole people of Israel, wait eagerly at the bottom of the mountain with open palms.

The mountain is curiously depicted as an upturned tub, drawing on a Talmudic midrash on Exodus 19:17: ‘God overturned the mountain above the Jews like a tub, and said to them; if you accept the Torah, excellent, and if not, there will be your burial’ (Shabbat 88a). Rabbi Aha ben Ya'akov then reflects on how Israel was coerced into accepting the Law, but later accepted it willingly in the Persian period (Esther 9.27; Sternthal 2018).

As depicted here, the Ten Commandments are usually understood to be those outlined in Exodus 20 (see also Deuteronomy 5), yet there is an entirely different set of commandments in Exodus 34. This ‘second’ set of commandments focuses on festivals, ritual, and sacrificial laws, such as the injunction against making a covenant with other nations and worshipping their gods, and instructions about offerings to God. They are in many ways more significant than the first set of laws for Israel’s identity and relationship with God.

This second set of commandments symbolizes the covenant that has survived Israel’s disobedience in worshipping the golden calf and confronts them with divine faithfulness.

References

Rabbi Steinsaltz, Adin Even-Israel (trans.). William Davidson Talmud, available at https://www.sefaria.org/texts/Talmud.

Sternthal, Michal. 2018. ‘The Israel Museum Regensburg Pentateuch‘, Oxford Chabad Society, University of Oxford, available at https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/video_cdo/aid/4103097/jewish/Hebrew-Illuminated-Manuscripts-The-Medieval-Regenburg-Pentateuch.htm [accessed 10 May 2024]

Master of Amiens (Maître du Amiens) :

Moses receiving the Law and Synagogue, from La Somme le Roi, 1311 , Illuminated manuscript on parchment

Ferdinand Bol :

Moses descends from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, 1662 , Oil on canvas

Unknown artist :

Moses receiving the law and handing it to Joshua, who hands it to the Elders, from the Regensburg Pentateuch, c.1300 , Handwritten on parchment; brown ink, tempera and gold leaf; square Ashkenazic script

The Gift of the Torah

Comparative commentary by Alison Gray

Cite Share

All three artworks in this exhibition inspire questions about divine revelation and hiddenness and probe the complexity of Moses’s authority and power. In both accounts of law-giving in Exodus, there is an ambiguity about who actually inscribes the commandments (24:3,12; 34:1, 27–28). The boundary between divine and human activity and authority is blurred in the imposing figure of Moses.

In giving the law to the people, Moses assumes an unrivalled position in Israel as mediator and intercessor. In Ferdinand Bol’s painting, ‘Moses becomes the ﬁgure par excellence to present the double origin of authority, both theological and political’ (Vardoulakis 2019: 772). He provides the ideal symbol to theologically inspire and reinforce the civil court’s political power. In the manuscript illustration of La Somme le Roi, God is revealed through a window in the thunder clouds, underneath bright dazzling light, to hand the tablets of the Law to Moses. Their faces mirror one another, accentuating the intimacy of their relationship. In the context of instruction for parish priests tasked with catechesis, Moses serves as the model mediator—God’s representative—for those who teach and reinforce the commandments in a Christian context.

The Regensburg Pentateuch cleverly captures the hierarchy of authority, while also reflecting on the process of transmitting the commandments. The open hands of those at the foot of the mountain suggest their eagerness to receive the commandments. Yet the challenges of such transmission, hinted at here, are an aspect of the burden of the Law that Israel was asked to receive, as interpreted in the accompanying midrash, by Rabbi Aha ben Ya’akov. Christian ambivalence (or outright antipathy) towards Moses and the Law can now only be seen in the Regensburg Pentateuch with the aid of infrared technology. The original, distorted facial features of the Israelite characters—all in profile—such as a heavy chin with goatee, and a long, crooked nose, have been partially concealed and amended by the colourist. It is possible that the draftsman was a non-Jewish artist, commissioned by a Jewish patron (Sternthal 2018).

Moses as law-giver and covenant mediator is a complex and powerful figure. In the Christian tradition, he at once symbolizes the Law—regarded positively as a gift in covenantal terms, or negatively in contrast to grace—and the prophetic authority that comes from one who can talk to God ‘face-to-face’, who radiates and reflects the divine glory. The Church, claiming for itself the election and covenant that the gift of the Law represents, has often struggled to make sense of Moses as both a type of Christ and as a symbol of the ‘old’ covenant.

The figure of Synagoga in La Somme le Roi reveals the medieval Church’s vilification of the Law and its desire to assert itself triumphantly against Judaism. A tension is created between the Church’s reception of the Ten Commandments as their legacy from Moses, and the notion that Judaism is ‘blind’ to Jesus’s ‘fulfilment of the Law’. Christian Scripture, particularly Paul’s discussion of Moses’s veil in 2 Corinthians 3, has unfortunately been fuel for such antisemitic representations of Judaism, in which the Church has repeatedly sought to deny and condemn Jewish interpretations of these shared texts.

It is curious that Moses is rarely depicted in art with the veil that is described in Exodus 34:33–35. It is unclear what kind of veil is meant, particularly as the Hebrew word masveh occurs only here in this chapter of Exodus. The veil might have risked effeminizing the famous prophet, or perhaps it was simply transposed into the image of the blindfold (Britt 2003: 259). Revelation and concealment are both communicated through the veil: Moses removes it to talk with God and disclose God’s words to the people, and his face is radiant with divine glory. When he has finished, the veil is drawn back over his visage.

After Moses’s death, however, divine glory becomes associated instead with the tabernacle/Temple itself as the locus of divine presence. It is tempting to draw a connection between Moses’s veil and the curtain in the Holy of Holies (Exodus 26:31–33) that separates the inner sanctuary from the rest of the Temple—another way of marking God’s holiness and safeguarding the divine presence.

The whole of this narrative (Exodus 19–24 and 32–34) explores the depth of fear and difficulty for humans in their relationship with God. In accepting Moses’s revelation of the Law, Israel simultaneously accepts Moses’s authority and fearfully shies away from direct communication with God (Exodus 20:19). The people’s fear of God’s overwhelming power at Sinai leads to their (understandable but unhealthy) reliance on Moses. Consequently, the people’s fear that Moses has abandoned them leads to their desperate desire for gods that they can see and worship (Exodus 32:1).

References

Britt, Brian. 2003. ‘Concealment, Revelation, and Gender: The Veil of Moses in the Bible and in Christian Art’, Religion and the Arts 7.3: 227–73

Sternthal, Michal. ‘Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts: The Medieval Regenburg Pentateuch’, Oxford Chabad Society, University of Oxford, available at https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/video_cdo/aid/4103097/jewish/Hebrew-Illuminated-Manuscripts-The-Medieval-Regenburg-Pentateuch.htm [accessed 10 May 2024]

Vardoulakis, Dimitris. 2019. ‘The figure of Moses: The Origins of Authority in Spinoza’, Textual Practice 33.5: 771–85

Next exhibition: Exodus 35