Mosesbrunnen

It is a Swiss Cultural Property of National Significance[1] and is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Old City of Bern.

Most commentators have simply said that Jerome mistranslated קָרַ֔ן (qāran) as “horned” rather than “radiant.” But Bena Elisha Medjuck, a McGill University Department of Jewish Studies graduate student, offered a more complex explanation in his 1988 thesis “Exodus 34:29-35: Moses’ ‘Horns’ in Early Bible Translation and Interpretation.”[1] Medjuck explains that Jerome was well-acquainted both with the variant meanings of qāran and with the prevailing translation of his contemporary Jewish scholars – with whom he consulted.

Jerome chose the “horned” translation as metaphor faithful to the text: a depiction of Moses’ strength and authority, and a glorification of the Lord.

The correct interpretation of these two words is that Moses was enlightened, that "the skin of his face shone" (as with a gloriole), as the KJV has it.

[4] With apparent Biblical authority, and the added convenience of giving Moses a unique and easily identifiable visual attribute (something the other Old Testament prophets notably lacked), it remained standard in Western art to depict Moses with small horns until well after the mistranslation was realized in the Renaissance.