“Moshe did not know that the skin on his face became radiant”. When Moshe descended from Har Sinai, the Torah says that his face was shining with rays of light. These “rays of splendor” radiated from Moshe’s face in such a glowing fashion that Moshe was forced to wear mask so that his people could look at him.
The Midrash explains , Moshe merited such an honor from Above because when Moshe completed writing the Torah, a drop of ink remained in the container, so Hashem himself smeared the remaining droplet on Moshe’s forehead. This drop of holy ink was the source of Moshe’s “rays of splendor.” However, the Midrash never actually explained what Moshe did to merit such a gift from Hashem. Furthermore, if the bottle of ink was divinely prepared, then HaShem would have prepared the exact amount of ink needed for the writing of a Torah, why would there be extra ink?
The Ohr HaChaim explains that really Hashem prepared the precise amount of ink required, yet a morsel remained because Moshe was so humble that he did not want to write the pasuk, “And the man Moshe was the most humble…” Instead, Moshe wrote the word “humble” (Anav) without the yud with which it is normally spelled. Similarly he made other words in the Torah shorter or spelled differently or with smaller letters such as the word vayikra having a small Aleph. All in order to keep His humility.
Therefore, the extra droplet of ink was a result of Moshe‘s humility in not spelling out the word “humble” completely. This extra droplet of ink was the source of Moshe‘s “rays of splendor.”
