rakhav

At its core this word names the act of riding: a person mounts a donkey, a horse, a mule, or a chariot and is carried along by it. In a world where most people walked, riding marked the traveler out, whether a wealthy household head, a fast messenger, or an army moving for war, so the word often signals rank, speed, or military force as much as simple transport.

The same picture is lifted up to describe God. He is portrayed as a rider who comes across the sky on the clouds or on a winged creature, an image of a king arriving in power to rescue or to judge. This is not a separate meaning but the ordinary act of riding stretched into poetry: the One who rides the heavens is pictured doing what a great king does, only on a cosmic scale.

Because the rider sits above and is carried by the mount, the word can also point to the thing ridden rather than the act, as when a saddle or seat is described as what someone rides on.

Here the action is done to someone else. One person lifts or places another onto a horse, a mule, a donkey, or into a chariot, so that the second person rides. It is the causing half of riding: not I ride, but I make you ride.

This is the language of installing and honoring. A king is set on the royal mule to be proclaimed, a favored official is mounted in a state chariot, a man marked for honor is paraded on horseback through the city. The act of putting someone up to ride publicly displays the rank being granted.

The image also turns figurative. God is said to set his people riding on the heights of the land, an image of lifting them to security and abundance, and conversely to make someone ride the storm wind, an image of being swept up and tossed about by forces beyond their control.