The Horns of Psalm 75

I write periodically over at Center for Chinese Church Studies. Here is a short item I posted over there recently about Psalm 75 and "horns."

Excerpt:
v. 10 All the horns of the wicked I will cut off,
but the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up.

The Psalm is clearly about the reality that God is the Judge and that is explicitly stated in v. 7 but what are the horns all about? This is a case where we need a reference work to give us a window into the Ancient Near East usage of metaphors. I turned to Bible Background Commentary – Old Testament and on p. 541 it said, “See the comment on ‘horn’ in the sidebar on common metaphors in Psalms.” Thus, I turned to that item on p. 514 where there was a paragraph on how horns were used in the iconography of the Ancient Near East. For instance, deities were often portrayed as having horns emanating from their crowns. Thus, the bottom line is that horns are used as a symbol for power.