Theriomorphic
language is applied to Yahweh in a hymnic mode, whether it involves having
horns “like a wild ox” (Num 23:22; 24:8) or attributed wings (especially in
Psalms, e.g., Pss 17:8; 36:7; 57:1; 61:4; 63:7; and 91:4). Yahweh’s horns
recall El’s title, “Bull,” perhaps not entirely surprising in light of the
other El language in the context of the poems in Numbers 23–24. Similarly,
there is the title “Ba‘lu-of-the-wing,” thought to be a manifestation of Baal
as a winged deity. There is also considerable bovine iconography, thought to be
representative of a number of gods (El, Baal, Yahweh). That these theriomorphic
forms were themselves thought to represent deities is illustrated by a
thirteenth-century relief from Alaca Höyük showing human petitioners standing
before a bovine on a throne or pedestal. (Mark S. Smith, Where the Gods Are:
Spatial Dimensions of Anthropomorphism in the Biblical World [Anchor Yale
Bible Reference Library; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016], 55)
