Yahwe is elsewhere in the Old Testament the father of the Hebrew nation (Hosea), and the father of the Messiah (Psalm 2), but in the hymns he is not actually called father, though his compassion is likened to that of a father for his children.
Like as a father pitieth his children,
So Yahwe pitieth those who fear him.
For He, indeed, knoweth our frame;
He remembereth that we are dust.
—Psalm 103:13f.
Chapter XIV
THE SUPREME GOD AS KING AND JUDGE
The final significance and supreme importance of deity for Assyrian and Hebrew hymnists is perhaps best summed up in the words: “King” and “Judge.” To be sure the person in sickness of any kind could and did have recourse to the god who had wisdom and power to work deliverance. But, even as the life of the Assyrian and Hebrew peoples revolved around the earthly king upon his throne, so they sought for authority and leadership, protection and prosperity, in a heavenly king, whose right it was to reign in heaven and on earth. It is not strange then that many Assyrian hymns do homage to the deity as, “King of heaven and earth”:
Shamash king of heaven and earth governor of things above and below.
—Hymn to Shamash No. 6.