—Psalm 104:21.
It may be remarked that these verses reveal a close bond of sympathy between the Hebrew God and the lower animals. This finds fullest expression in Psalm 104 where the brooks in the mountains afford drink for the wild beasts, and the birds and the cedars of Lebanon avail for birds’ nests, the high mountains for the wild goats and the rocks for the conies.
While the Assyrian hymns do not happen to speak of the god as providing food for the animals, yet there is one hymnal passage which reveals regard for the lower animals and perhaps also suggests a bond of sympathy between deity and the lower animals:
The creeping beast, the four footed one,
For thy great light their eyes are directed to thee.
—Hymn to Shamash No. 7.
The fertility of the soil is directly due to the act of the deity in sending rain:
In the heavens I take my place and send rain;
In the earth I take my place and cause the verdure to spring forth.
—Hymn to Ishtar No. 4.