Is Mount Zion, on the northern slope
The city of the great King.
The above small group of hymns are the only hymns or hymnal passages in which the third person is exclusively used. As has been seen, the great majority of Assyrian hymns employ the second person and are really only hymnal introductions to prayers. A small but notable group is made up of the self-laudations of the gods. On the other hand the vast majority of Hebrew hymns speak of Yahwe in the third person in their praise of him, and their praise is disinterested; it is not introductory to a petition. It is likewise significant that where Yahwe speaks in hymnal praise of himself in Isaiah 40-45, it is to convince despairing, doubting Israel of his intention and power to save Israel, and to use Israel in the fulfillment of his eternal purpose. Here again one might say that while the Assyrian deities haughtily and arrogantly proclaim their own greatness, seeking thereby only their own glory, Yahwe’s praise of himself is almost altogether disinterested, since his concern is to achieve salvation of Israel and the world. In the Hebrew sense of the word then, the genuine hymn is only beginning to emerge in Assyrian poetry.
Division III
A COMPARISON OF THE ASSYRIAN AND THE HEBREW HYMNS
Chapter IX
THE LITERARY FORM OF THE ASSYRIAN AND THE HEBREW HYMNS
The comparison of the Assyrian and the Hebrew hymns ought naturally to begin with the consideration of their literary form. This brings us to the first and most obvious distinctive mark of poetry in both literatures, the relatively uniform length of the lines in each poem. Wherever a line lengthens out unduly it is clear that there is a lapse into prose. A second phenomenon that meets the eye frequently in the Assyrian poems and even more often in the Hebrew psalms, is the falling of the line into two divisions:
He who accepts no bribe, who takes the side of the weak,
Is well pleasing to Shamash, prolongs his life.
—Hymn to Shamash No. 6.
Shining Fire God, who surveys the tops of the mountains