If you’re like me, you’ve learned from the footnotes in your Bible that “horn symbolizes strength.”
So when we read a verse like Psalm 89:24, “through my name his horn will be exalted,” we’re supposed to interpret this as meaning something like, “He will be strong because of me.” But I have a couple questions. First, what kind of horn are we talking about? For some reason I have always thought this was a cow’s horn. Yesterday, in talking about this verse, my son thought it was referring to a horn used as a drinking vessel and “exalting a horn” was a way of saying “lifting up a cup in toast.” There’s one other horn that this could be referring to and that is a musical instrument like a bugle. Perhaps lifting up the horn is a way of “tooting your own horn” that is, proclaiming at large someone’s fame.
In the Bible Society Translators Handbook on the Psalms by Robert G. Bratcher and William D. Reyburn, they interpret “horn” as “probably owing its meaning to the horns of a bull.” John Piper, in a sermon called Jesus is the horn of salvation, also favors this interpretation. But even if we suppose that this interpretation is correct, what image is behind the metaphor? Imagine an enormous bull with huge horns. It’s powerful, scary, intimidating, etc. Now imagine that your job is to exalt that bull’s horn. How would you go about that? And why only one horn, not two? And furthermore, how are you going to do it “through your name?” So, I think you can see that this entire metaphor draws a blank for most people. We simply have to be taught what it’s “supposed to mean.” I put that last phrase in quotes, because I seriously start to wonder if we know what it means when there is no internal evidence from the Scriptures to give insight into this expression.
From other references to “horn” in the Scriptures it seems that it is clearly referring to an ox’s horn:
- Psalm 92:10 “You have exalted my horn like that of a wild ox.”
- Psalm 132:17 “Here I will make a horn grow for David.”
- See John Piper’s sermon for an exhaustive list of references to “horn.”
No trumpets or drinking vessels in those verses! But nevertheless I still think we have a tough time conjuring up some sort of meaningful mental picture of what “exalting a horn” means. As someone named after the shepherd king, I feel a great affinity for the story of David. But I’m not sure what to think about claiming a promise like “I will make a horn grow for David!”
Does anyone else have a good explanation for the phrase “exalt someone’s horn?” Since this phrase seems to be meaningless to most readers why don’t translators translate the phrase instead of just leaving us with a cryptic footnote about “symbolizes strength?”
This phrase caused some difficulty in our Bible translation project because in the target language the literal word for a horn could be used metaphorically only in a bad sense. So it was OK for the horned beasts of Revelation, in which the horns do seem to be symbols of evil. But in the psalms you refer to, and in Luke 1:69 which you quote in you title, also 1 Samuel 2:1, there was a problem. Some of the translation team, at least in the early stages of the project, wanted a rather literal translation and so to use the literal word for horn. But this would have had quite wrong connotations in these verses. In the end we simply translated something like “strength”, possibly with a footnote “literally horn“. I think this discussion was in fact a turning point for our team which got them to realise that Bible translation cannot be literal.
Looking at the list of verses, and also looking at the semantic range of the Hebrew word “rum” (for exalt) I’d suggest dropping both the word “horn” and “exalt” and trying something along the lines of:
“increase David’s strength and make it prominent” (Ps. 132:17)
In each particular case I think you have to ask to what extent strength is increased, and to what extent it’s made prominent to see. The metaphor is the animal who raises the horn indicated that he is about to take action.
Just my quick thought …
I agree that in this Psalm the idiom is extremely obscure; I’m not sure that it is even an image, rather than a fixed figure of speech, although I, too, may be missing.
Relegating it to footnote in this and several places is probably a good idea, even in languages in which it can have a positive metaphorical meaning.
However, this practice tends to obscure the physicality of the use in Jeremiah 48:25, which itself clarifies the meaning in other contexts.
The NJPS has, to my annoyance, the readily intelligible but bland “The might of Moab has been cut down, His strength is broken,” as against the more concrete “The horn of Moab is cut off, and his arm is broken” in NRSV (following RSV).
Ironically, NJPS prints it as in verse, not as part of the prose, but assumes that the reader is incapable of grasping what may be two successive, if visually incongruent, metaphors. (I think of a horn-wearing image of a god or king, but wouldn’t want to argue the case!)
I’ve sometimes wondered if the specified use of a horn of oil for anointing in I Samuel 16 and I King 1:39 involved a “transference of power” image. I don’t think drinking horns as such appear in the Biblical text, although they do seem to have been known, to judge from horn-like rhytons from neighboring culture.
In the Ugaritic Baal Cycle, the chief god (god father) El is often referred to as tr.il.ab = the Bull, El, (your) father and (as Ian has pointed out) Ugaritic gods are often portrayed with horns. Looking at Psalm 148:14 “He also exalteth the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints” (assuming paralelismus membrorum, i.e. horn of his people = praise of his faithful) and at the “horn of Moab” Ian mentioned, I’m starting to wonder whether horn could be a symbol of authority and, by extension, refer to the authority (i.e. king) itself.
In KTU 1.92, Baal desires Ashtart and seeks her out. Then “Baal raised his horn in front of the guards. The guards replied: the city is well guarded…” The horn here could again be the symbol authority, used by Baal to compel the guards to answer/let him pass. Unfortunately, the text is incomplete.
And then there’s KTU 1.10, which is a description of a sexual encounter between Baal and (probably) Anat. In it, Baal greets Anat with the words “(Baal) shall anoint the horn of your strength.” Compare with 1 Samuel 2:10.
And why only one horn, not two?
Well, there is always the sexual option. See 1 Samuel 2:1 or Job 16:15.
Good comments, one and all. Thanks for taking the bull by the horns. I still think we’re caught on the horns of a dilemma, but I’m too tired to horn in on the conversation. And as it says in the good book, “I will accept no bull from your house.” Psalm 50:9 (RSV)
On the point “why only one horn, not two?“, it is worth remembering that KJV reads “unicorn” at Psalm 92:10, and in some other places where horns are mentioned. This is in fact a consistent translation of Hebrew re’em, “wild ox” in most modern translations and often identified as the aurochs. But LXX has monokeros, literally “one horn”, and Vulgate has either unicornis or rhinoceros. So there is an ancient tradition that this refers to an animal with a single horn. I guess that this tradition could have arisen just from Psalm 92:10. But, I wonder, is there a possibility that the word could in fact refer to the rhinoceros? Both black and white rhinos used to be found in Sudan and seem to have been known in Egypt. Or could it even be a memory of the extinct giant unicorn, Elasmotherium? Maybe there is more to this single horn than meets the eye.
Peter, that’s fascinating information. Don’t you think that the collocation of the expression “lift up my horn” and “wild ox” shows that the idiom was still active? Also, I’m wondering if these phrases contain any poetic alliteration with the Hebrew words for “horn” and “exalt.”
any poetic alliteration with the Hebrew words for “horn” and “exalt.”
Horn = qeren, qaren (only in Ps 75:4), qarn- + pronouns (qarni = my horn, qarno = his horn, qarnenu = our horn, qarntem = your horn)
Exalt = 1. rum (jarem); 2. raḥav (only 1 Sam 2:1);
Good catch, Peter. The “wild ox” translation is confirmed by Ugaritic “rum” and Akkadian “rīmu”.
By the way, did you notice the “horn of salvation” in Luke 1:69?
I believe a horn used as a trumpet is a “shofar” in Hebrew (Joel 2:1). I’m not sure what it is for ram’s horn in Exodus 19:13.
Daniel 7 and 8 mention a “horn” as a ruler or political figure. Revelation is full of horns: The lamb with seven horns (5:6), the beast with two horns (13:11), the scarlet beast with ten horns (17:3, 12). Verse 17:12 explicitly states that the horns represent kings. I can only find singular “horn,” keras once in the New Testament:: Luke 1:69.
I just saw a Dodge Ram commercial on TV: “Grab life by the horns!” Horns: they’re everywhere!
Regarding Luke 1:69, I think it is fair to say that Zechariah was envisioning an earthly messiah that would reestablish the rule of David. “Raised up a horn of salvation for us” is Biblish for “given us a ruler who will save us.” I have no doubt that “raising up a horn” was a current idiom, ostensibly it could have been veiled language for “someone to kick Rome’s butt.”
bulbul, could you enlighten me as to what Ugaritic and Akkadian are?
Yes, Joel 2:1 indeed speaks of /šofar/, while ram’s horn in Exodus 19:13 is /yoḇel/.
could you enlighten me as to what Ugaritic and Akkadian are?
My pleasure :o)
Ugaritic and Akkadian are two Semitic languages, relatives of Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic. While Akkadian (also known as Assyrian and Babylonian) is a distant relative, Ugaritic is very close to Old Testament Hebrew. The discovery of Ugaritic has enormously furthered our understanding of the language of the Old Testament, since OT Hebrew is known to us only from this one source and we often cannot be sure about the meaning of individual words and language usage in general. In such situations, we can now scout Ugaritic or other Semitic languages for cognates (like I did just now with /rem/) and hopefully find similar words and/or structures which will shed more light on the respective Hebrew passage (and be a little smarter than the translators of KJV :o).
Oy, wrong smiley
Yes, Joel 2:1 is defintitely a “shofar.” Exodus 19:13 has “yovel,” which seems in some places to be synonymous with “shofar” — KJV often render’s it “ram’s horn,” or the equivalent. (However, the verse itself seems a bit opaque; NJPS admits to uncertainty as to the usual “sounds a long blast” interpretation.)
By the way, there has been some speculation that, leaving aside the perhaps metaphorical use of a singular in Hebrew, the “one horn” interpretation of “re’em” in Greek might reflect Mesopotamian depictions of horned animals in profile, as well as the one-horned Indian Rhinoceros. Older discussions, still of interest, are Odell Shepard’s “The Lore of the Unicorn” (1930; many recent editions) and Willy Ley’s “The Lungfish, The Dodo & The Unicorn: An Excursion Into Romantic Zoology.” (Revised edition, 1948; originally 1941 as “The Lungfish and the Unicorn.” Portions included in “Exotic Zoology,” 1955, reprinted as “Willy Ley’s Exotic Zoology,” 1987.)
There is certainly some kind of alliteration in Psalm 92:10 between wattarem “and you exalted” (the “rem” part means “exalted”) and the very next word kir’em “like a wild ox” or “like a unicorn”. But I don’t see any alliteration with qeren meaning “horn”.
By the way, this is a rare case (”wine” is another one) where the Hebrew, Greek and English words, qeren, keras and “horn”, are cognates.
Bulbul (is that from the Persian for “nightingale”?), how do we know that the Ugaritic “rum” and the Akkadian “rimu” was the wild ox or aurochs (Bos primigenius) and not the rhinoceros or the elasmotherium? Are there clearly identifiable pictures?
Even so, the same name in different languages can refer to different animals. As an example, in Persian bulbul means “nightingale“, the same species Luscinia megarhynchos which is common throughout much of Europe; indeed, “The Nightingale is the national bird of Iran.” But in English, probably based on Arabic, the bulbul is a different bird or family of birds (Pycnonotidae) which is found in Africa and tropical Asia.
Sorry, Ian. What is NJPS?
Sorry: and the explanation is a bit complicated.
NJPS is the New Jewish Publication Society version, commissioned in 1955, and originally published in sections over the course of twenty years, with the running subtitle “A new translation of THE HOLY SCRIPTURES according to the Masoretic Text.” It has gone through a number of variations.
Besides some single books, designed to feed public interest or meet demand — e.g. “Genesis” (1961?), “Psalms” (1972), “Isaiah” (1972), and “Jeremiah’ (1973) and a small collection to meet liturgical needs (a bilingual “The Five Megilloth and Jonah,” suitable for synagogue use — by the liberal-minded, anyway – in 1969) it appeared as “The Torah: The Five Books Of Moses” (1962), The Prophets: Nevi’im” (1978), and “The Writings: Kethubim” (1982).
It was the work of committees which included, among others, Harry M. Orlinsky, H.L. Ginsberg, Ephraim A. Speiser, Moshe Greenberg, Jonas C. Greenfield, and Nahum M. Sarna.
The collected edition, incorporating revisions, has been published as “Tanakh (Torah-Nevi’im-Kethuvim): A New Translation….” (1985), and “Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures, The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text” (1988), and some other variations. Emanuel Tov praised it highly in “Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible” (1992), citing it as NJPST — which I don’t think I have seen elsewhere.
It was revised slightly for the bilingual “JPS Hebrew-English TANKAH: The Traditional Hebrew Text and The New JPS Translation” (1999), and is the base text of the recent Oxford “Jewish Study Bible” (2004).
NJPS has been used for synagogue-use volumes (e.g., Plaut’s “The Torah: A Modern Commentary”) and a JPS commentary series is in progress.
It is sometimes referred to casually as JPS, or “the JPS version,” which is confusing. That was for about seventy years the common abbreviation for the same publisher’s “THE HOLY SCRIPTURES According to the Masoretic Text: A New Translation, with the Aid of Previous Versions and with Constant Consultations of Jewish Authorities,” released in 1917. That version, the most widely used Jewish translation into English during much of the twentieth century, adhered rather closely to the Tyndale tradition — mostly in the form of the Revised Version, which the editor-in-chief took as a model for style. The old JPS was re-set in a larger format in 1955, when that the publisher was persuaded that a complete new version was needed, but wouldn’t be available soon. The 1917 translation may be out of print at the moment, but is available on-line.
So from what I’m hearing and especailly from the verses in Daniel and Revelation I think the concept of horn has to do with political supremacy. Agree?
Peter,
Bulbul (is that from the Persian for “nightingale”?)
Yes indeed. Most Arabic dictionaries also give “nightingale” for “bulbul”.
how do we know that the Ugaritic “rum” and the Akkadian “rimu” was the wild ox or aurochs (Bos primigenius) … Are there clearly identifiable pictures?
Yes, plenty. I am not sufficiently well versed in zoology to confirm whether the statues like this one or this one do indeed portray an auroch, but it does appear so to my layman eyes.
As for the different meanings of the word /bulbul/ in Persian/Arabic and English, this is most likely a classic example of semantic shift. The English already had a word for the bird referred to in Persian as “bulbul”, so they started using the Persian word for a different kind of songbird. Notice that bulbuls are native to Asia and Africa and were thus discovered by Europeans some centuries before they first heard a nightingale sing. In addition, some of the members of the bulbul family are native to India, where Persian was one of the ‘official’ languages of the Mughal Empire. In the absence of the nightingale they were used to, the Persian-speaking newcomers might have started using a familiar word for this new bird. Or perhaps they did not notice that the Indian bulbul was different from Iranian bulbul.
Please note that I do not discard the possibility of /rm/ originally referring to rhinoceroses and then undergoing a similar semantic shift. It’s just that there is very little evidence to support this theory.
Even so, the same name in different languages can refer to different animals.
This is true. But let us consider Slavic languages which are roughly as close to one another as Semitic languages were back in the day: kôň, kůň, koń, konj, кон, коњ, конь, кінь are, respectively, Slovak, Czech, Polish, Croatian/Serbian/Slovenian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian and words for the same animal - horse. Aside from an occasional change in the vowel quality and one case of depalatalization, in more than 1000 years since the break-up of Common Slavic, not much has changed. Only one language - Russian - has introduced a new word, лошадь, most likely as a borrowing from Turkic languages.
So from what I’m hearing and especailly from the verses in Daniel and Revelation I think the concept of horn has to do with political supremacy. Agree?
Yes. I would also add Zechariah 1:21 as evidence.
There is one more interesting thing: in Arabic, Alexander the Great is usually referred to as ḏū ‘l-qarnajn = he with two horns. The standard explanation given to students is that it indicates his power in both West and East. Interesting, isn’t it?
“Are there clearly identifiable pictures?”
Yes, we seem to have confirmation for “rimu” as a species of cattle, and definitely not a rhinoceros.
Distinctly-configured bulls often appear in profile, along with lions, and a sort of dragon (the Mush-hush, formerly transliterated sirrush), in association with specific gods. (E.g., the repeated image of the mush-hush, usually connected with Bel-Marduk, was long ago suggested as the inspiration of “Bel and the Dragon,” although I find that a little excessive, myself.)
Assyriologists seem convinced that these are, indeed, the “rimu” of the texts, stylized from a long tradition of formal representation. And always shown, according to a fixed convention, with the horns merged in profile.
A good ancient portrayal of a “rimu,” somewhat restored by comparison with its many companions, accompanies the Wikipedia articles on the “Ishtar Gate.”
Horn = qeren, qaren (only in Ps 75:4), qarn- + pronouns (qarni = my horn, qarno = his horn, qarnenu = our horn, qarntem = your horn)
Is it just a random coincidence that English “horn” derives from Germanic and, I assume, something like Proto-Indo-European *krn, as in “cornucopia”? Semitic and I-E languages are not related but there could have been some borrowing due to language contact.
Anybody know?
Thanks, Bulbul, for mentioning Alexander’s horns. Here is a bit of history on Alexander’s horns.
I also wonder if there is any relation between this kind of horn and the tittle on a Hebrew letter, which is also called a horn in Greek keraios.
Oops - keraia or keras
Thanks, Bulbul and Ian, for the information about the rimu. I have seen the parts of the Ishtar Gate preserved in Istanbul. I accept that the Akkadian rimu was the aurochs. But this does not prove the same about the Hebrew re’em.
I thought Alexander the Great was called ḏū ‘l-qarnajn because he wore a two-horned helmet, which appears on some of his coins, for example the one shown here. Perhaps he did this because he worshipped the ram-god, as in the link Suzanne gave us.
With rimu established as the aurochs for Akkadian, we can look at how the Biblical text treats the cognate term.
In Deuteronomy 33:17, describing the “Joseph” tribes: “Like a firstling bull (shor) in his majesty, / He has horns like the horns of the wild-ox (re’em); / With them he gores the peoples, / The ends of the earth, one and all. / These are the myriads of Ephraim, / Those are the thousands of Manasseh” (NJPS).
The parallelism here — two varieties of cattle treated as symbolic of brothers — seems fairly convincing to me.
Since this is one of the passages in which re’em was once rendered “unicorn,” in KJV the “one-horned” sense was “preserved” by reading it as a collective term, to be translated in the plural: “and his horns are like the horns of unicorns.” The Revised Version corrected it to “and his horns are the horns of the wild ox,” with a reference to Numbers 23:22, where, as in Num. 24:8, “unicorn” was also the traditional reading, although with no obvious conflict of singular and plural.
RV also offered as an alternative “ox-antelope,” probably meaning the oryx, a suggestion still seen from time to time.
It is fair to point out that even Greek “monokeros” sometimes seems to have included the two-horned African (and perhaps the Sumatran) types of rhinoceros, the former of which very well could have been known to ancient Israel, at least by report. So a non-mythological reference to one of the rhino species would not be ruled out here on those grounds. I just think that it is much, much, less likely than something known from Western Asia in historical times.
Peter,
But this does not prove the same about the Hebrew re’em.
You are quite right. I do not discount the possibility of semantic shift, but it is more likely that /re’em/ refers to some other cattle.
I thought Alexander the Great was called ḏū ‘l-qarnajn because he wore a two-horned helmet
This calls for someone with better knowledge of ancient Greek and Macedonian history. I can only say that a helmet with two horns is something rarely seen worn by Greek and Macedonian armies.
Suzanne,
thank you very much for the link. I hadn’t made the connection between Amon and Alexander’s horns before, now I know better
Ian, you have convinced me that the re’em is more likely to have been the aurochs than the rhinoceros or the elasmotherium.
The two-horned helmet is said to have been a speciality of Alexander’s perhaps because of the link with Amon. As confirmation for Wikipedia-sceptics like Rick, I found a nice image of him with horns (well, only one visible, but not as a unicorn!) at the Encyclopædia Britannica site. But this doesn’t look like a helmet, although the horns may be attached to the visible headband. I know that somewhere I have a nice picture of Alexander with a two-horned helmet, but I can’t find it.
I don’t wish to be bull-headed about this, but I would like you to sharpen your horns on another related problem. That is the word for “exalt” in Hebrew and Greek. I think that one of the problems in comprehension in these passages is that translations are using an ambiguous word for “exalt” or “lift up.”
So, in Psalm 92:10, “You have exalted my horn like that of a wild ox,” the image that this is meant to conjure is not of an ox lifting its head before charging (although I like that idea) or of God lifting up the horn of an ox, but rather of God causing someone to be in power over others, usually surrounding enemy nations. If this is in fact the case, then a good translation of these passages will either make this idea explicit, or footnote it. In other words, “horn symbolizes strength” is not an adequate bridging strategy (neither bringing the text to the reader OR the reader to the text).
I plan to post an extended analysis of how to translate Luke 1:69 tomorrow (unless I don’t!).
but I would like you to sharpen your horns on another related problem.
Ah, ’tis - as we say in these parts - a word to the battle!
It’s a bit late now, so only one short remark: the word for “exalt” in Psalm 92:10, as well as Psalm 74:4-5 and 148:14, is /herim/ - /yarem/, a hif’il verb. On the other hand, in Psalm 89:17 and 89:24 (”my horn shall be exalted”), the verb /rum/ - /tarum/ is in qal.
Now we know that hif’il is a causative stem, but there is usually more to it than simple “made X, caused to be X”. For example, the hif’il stem appears in Ezekiel 21:26 as a command - /ve-harim ha-’atara/ - and is translated by KJV and NRSV as “take off the crown”, i.e. “lift the crown of his head”.
A copy of Michaelangelo’s Moses with horns sits in our church lobby, showing the confusion between קָרַן and קֶרֶן The children are always interested in that story!
Suzanne,
I bet there’s an interesting story behind how your church acquired that statue! Committee decision? Donation? Minnesota Vikings fan? Kinda reminds me of the cover of an AC/DC album.
Ian,
You wrote: The parallelism here — two varieties of cattle treated as symbolic of brothers — seems fairly convincing to me.
You mean, I take it that the two terms are interchangeable? Poetic parallelism here, so this might not suggest anything about taxonomy.
I think that the parallel works much, much better (although it may not absolutely require) a very obvious similarity between the types of animals.
The underlying image is that the two brothers/tribes are alike, but still distinguishable; and that they are strong in the same way (although perhaps to different degrees).
I think that very few people are likely to see a “family resemblance’ between domestic cattle and the rhinoceros, unless prompted (”which two animals have horns?”). But most would quickly acknowledge that the aurochs is a variation on the same pattern.
The oryx interpretation falls somewhere in between; whether someone looks at it and says “antelope,” or “deer,” or “some sort of funny-looking cow” is probably a matter of the nomenclature the person is used to.
That the text has been read otherwise is incontrovertible. I have seen the “unicorn” reading reflected in modern synagogue art, with the images of the tribes (the wolf of Benjamin, the lion of Judah, etc.) including profiles of a bull and a unicorn (or just their heads) juxtaposed for Ephraim and Manasseh. (I suspect reliance on European, and hence Christian, models, which I know were used in other cases, but I would be interested in a study of the subject.)
I came across a facinating explanation of “horn” in the Jameson, Faucett, and Brown Commentary on the Whole Bible (1961, 1970 Zondervan) that I have seen nowhere else.
Commenting on 1 Samuel 2:1 where Hannah prays” My horn is exhalted in the Lord…” they say:
“Allusion is here made to a pecularity in the dress of Eastern women about Lebanon, which seems to have obtained anciently among the Isralite women, that of wearing a silver or tin horn on the forehead on which their veil is suspended. Wives, who have no children, wear it projecting in an oblique direction, while those who become mothers forthwith raise it a few inches higher, inclining towards perpendicular, and by their slight but observable change in their headderess, make known , wherever they go, the maternal character which they now bear.”
Can anyone verify this cultural tratition? Where did they get this idea from? I welcome any clarification.
Thanks,
s
Steve, that is really strange! I haven’t heard of it before. Thanks for the “tip.”
God speaking, speaking of David in my name shall his king be exalted talking about Christ Jesus who is Davids king as he is mine Godbless hope this helps
Wow.