Ps. 92.10-11 (Yhwh's wild ox)

As if I were a wild ox / you have raised my horn
which I have rubbed / with fresh oil.
My eyes have gazed / in triumph / at my attackers
when evil foes / rose against me
my ears heard / them scatter. 

The king now comes into view as a ‘wild ox’, whose horn is rubbed with fresh oil. We then simply observe him, as he gazes and hears the scattering of his enemies. The image of the king is one of such astonishing authority and power that his presence alone defeats his enemies. We will contemplate this further, but the king never attacks; his only ‘activity’ is in observation. But first we need to observe the point that the king although ‘wild’ is under the authority and control of Yhwh. Yhwh ‘raised my horn’. There is an important dynamic at work here. On the one hand, the psalmist is emphasizing the ‘wild’ and uncontrollable strength of the king-ox. He stands outside the realm of human control. On the other hand, this ‘wildness’ and ‘power’ is one that is actually engendered by Yhwh. When Yhwh empowers his king, he becomes ‘undomesticated’ in authority and strength, but he has been removed outside of ‘domestication’ precisely because Yhwh has imbued him with this ‘wild’ power. In other words, the ‘wildness’ of the king, the ‘excessiveness’ of him, is the manifestation of him standing in the ‘wild’ (excessive and prodigal) power of Yhwh, and exerting and enacting that power on earth. He is the ‘Adam-of-Yhwh’, the ‘image of God’. 

What occurs between this verse and the next is crucial, but it is entirely missing. There is no attack. There is no conquering. Rather, the verse moves from the empowerment of the king to king gazing in triumph over the field of battle. We have already alluded to why this is the case, but we can flesh it out in more detail here. In verses 7 and 9, the ‘enemies’ of Yhwh are destroyed, but there is no report of an attack by Yhwh; it is all entirely in the passive voice. The same dynamic is now portrayed in the king. As such, he is mirroring the activity of Yhwh. Just as the presence of Yhwh itself mysteriously engenders the destruction of his enemies so too now does the presence of the king mysteriously conquer his enemies. This reality is emphasized more acutely in the lines, “when evil foes rose against me, my ears heard them scatter.” Now, the drama is portrayed (“when they rose against me”), but again with an entirely missing ‘middle’. More to the point, the psalmist now employs the more passive quality of hearing rather than sight. He only ‘hears’ them scatter. It is as if the entire action is taking place ‘off stage’ and the king can only hear its effects. What this accomplishes is this: the more the activity of the king is muted, the more his ‘presence’ is seen as overwhelmingly powerful. His simple ‘being’ or ‘presence’ accomplishes the destruction of that which opposes it, just like Yhwh who, although “on-high”, exerts an absolute power on earth (“forever destroyed”; vs. 7). There is here the sense that that which is most powerful is that which can remain unmoved and still accomplish its will. It does not, in a way, need to ‘respond’; it simply needs to be ‘present’. 

One final point is the fact that the enemies of Yhwh are here portrayed as the enemies of the king. This is astonishing. The king has now expanded to the boundary of Yhwh’s authority. Just as “his enemies” equals “all the wicked”, so too now is the king moved into and empowered with this same Yhwh-authority. And, just as Yhwh's enemies "scatter" (vs. 9), so now do the king's enemies "scatter" (vs. 11). Again, he is the ‘image of God’, the ‘Adam of God’, the ‘son of God’. He is the one who ‘enacts Yhwh’ on earth.