2nd Corinthians Chapter 3 verse 13 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 13. - And not as Moses. We need not act, as Moses was obliged to do, by putting any veil upon our faces while we speak. And here the image of "the veil" as completely seizes St. Paul's imagination as the image of the letter does in the first verses. Put a veil; literally, was putting, or, used to put, a veil on his face when he had finished speaking to the people. That the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished; rather, that the children of Israel might not gaze on the end of what was passing away. The object of the veil, according to St. Paul, was to prevent the Israelites from gazing on the last gleam of the covenant. In other words, he did not wish them to be witnesses of a fading glory. It is preposterous to imagine that St. Paul is here casting any blame on the conduct of Moses, as though he acted fraudulently or delusively. Moses was aware, and even told the people, float his legislation was not final (Deuteronomy 18:15 -19), but it would be quite natural that he should not wish the people to witness the gradual dimming of the lustre which, in St. Paul's view, was typical of that transitoriness. It seems, however, that St. Paul is here either (1) following a different reading or rendering of Exodus 34:33; or (2) is adopting some Jewish hagadah; or (3) is giving his own turn to the narrative, as the rabbis habitually did, by way of midrash, or exposition. For from the narrative of Exodus we should not gather that it was the object of Moses to hide the disappearance of the splendour, but rather to render the light endurable. In our Authorized Version the verse runs, "till Moses had done speaking with them he put a veil on his face;" but the meaning of the original may be, "after he had done speaking with them," as the LXX. takes it and the Vulgate. The end. To interpret this of Christ, because of Romans 10:4, is an instance of the superstitious and unintelligent way in which systems are made out of a mosaic of broken texts. The foolish character of the interpretation is shown when we consider that it involves the inference that Moses put a veil on his face in order to prevent the Israelites from seeing Christi But this attempt to illustrate Scripture by catching at a similar, expression applied in a wholly different way in another part of Scripture, is one of the normal follies of scriptural interpretation.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(13) And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face.--The Apostle, it must be remembered, has in his thoughts either the LXX. version of Exodus 34:33, or an interpretation of the Hebrew answering to that version. (See Note on 2Corinthians 3:7.) What was the object of this putting on of the veil? The English version of that text suggests that it was to hide the brightness from which they shrank. But the interpretation which St. Paul follows presents a very different view. Moses put the veil over his face that they might not see the end, the fading away of that transitory glory. For them it was as though it were permanent and unfading. They did not see--this is St. Paul's way of allegorising the fact stated--that the whole system of the Law, as symbolised by that brightness, had but a fugitive and temporary being.Could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished.--Better, look on the end of that which was perishing. Literally, the words state the fact, they could not see how the perishing glory ended. In the interpretation of the parable St. Paul seems to say that what was true of those older Israelites was true also of their descendants. They could not see the true end of the perishing system of the Law, its aim, purport, consummation. There is, perhaps, though most recent commentators have refused to recognise it, a half-allusive reference to the thought expressed in Romans 10:4, that "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness;" or, in 1Timothy 1:5, that "the end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart." Had their eyes been open, they would have seen in the fading away of the old glory of the decaying "letter" the dawn of a glory that excelled it. And in the thought that this was the true "end" of the Law we find the ground for the Apostle's assertion that he used great plainness of speech. He had no need to veil his face or his meaning, for he had no fear lest the glory of the gospel of which he was a minister should fade away.