The Hebrew hymn is, if anything more concrete than the Assyrian, in that it mentions not only the barren wife as above (one thinks of Sarah, Rachel, Hannah), but also the widow and the orphan and the sojourner, as special objects of the deity’s compassion.
Yahwe loveth the righteous:
Yahwe protecteth the sojourners;
The fatherless and the widow he upholdeth;
But the way of the wicked he perverteth.
—Psalm 146:9.
A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widow,
Is God in his holy habitation.
—Psalm 68:6.
Yahwe’s mercy, as was that of the Assyrian deity, is extended in a special degree to those who keep his covenant and obey his commandments: