The symbolic use of “horn”

Question

It has proved difficult to find an answer to this question

A quick concordance search of "horn" and you will find many different uses for the word. My center-column notes say "strength." But why? What is the Hebrew sense of this word?

Psalm 92:10 might give a clue:

But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil.

Horns are strong, they are used for annointing, for calls to battle. I seem to be answering my own question, however, there seems to be a development of the horn in the Bible, especially in the beasts in Daniel 7 & 8.

The phrase "the son of my right hand" has several understandings, but they are more obvious since handedness is universal. I know what horn means, what does horn really mean?

Answer 1

Hermann Gunkel's psalm commentary lets us know this: "The metaphor of the horn, originally used by God (cf. the Babylonian crown of horns) was then transferred to the king, and finally to the normal prayer."¹

In the accompanying intruction to the psalms, he calls the horns a "symbol of God's power".²

Spurgeon basically says the same. I quote: "It pleased holy David more that God was his strength than that He gave him strength [...] that God was his fortress, his buckler, his horn, his hight tower" etc.³

You might be suprised, but: that's all that's known.

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^{1: Hermann Gunkel, Die Psalmen (61986), p410
2: Hermann Gunkel, Einleitung in die Psalmen (41985), p148
3: Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The treasury of David (2004), p78}